The October Story
by Appelia
Summary: It all started on October first. The day that Eren found that strange little cat alone in the street outside the thrift store. Everything afterwards might have been coincidental. Or fate. Some might say that crossing paths with a black cat is bad luck. But for Eren, things weren't so certain. In fact, finding that cat may have been the best thing that ever happened to him.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello. It's Appelia. And this is a neko! fic. It's also maybe the fluffiest and dorkiest thing that I have ever written.**

**Finally, I have a fanfiction where nobody cries!**  
><strong>I know this first chapter might be a little messy, but I just wanted to post it by today. It makes the story more special. Don't ask me why, because I don't really know. The rest of the updates are definitely NOT going to follow the timeframe of the story, because there is no way i can write and edit that fast. This is also probably the first fic I have ever posted before I was finished with it. So, updates will probably be kind of slow after this. But it will be a complete story by the end! <strong>**ALSO, SHAMELESS TUMBLR PROMOTING! asking-appelia is my author blog. Go follow it and see all the other stupid things i do. Follow me at lord-ravioli, my main tumblr blog, for even more stupidity than gets posted on my author one.**

**As for now, I just hope you enjoy the first chapter and are willing to read the rest once it's finished.**

**Sincerely, the writer. (this isn't a letter, it's an author's note. why is that there?)**

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><p>It all started on a cold, rainy October first.<p>

Eren Jaeger was walking home from work. It wasn't anything out of the ordinary for him, walking home in the rain. Being that him and his sister were both broke college students trying to scrape out a living on their own, he couldn't even come close to affording a car. Walking everywhere, regardless of weather, had become a pretty routine thing for him.

The cat, however, was new.

Eren had noticed the tiny black smudge sitting next to the entrance of the thrift store from a distance, but he hadn't thought much of it. He figured that the owner had left something odd out front to draw in customers. He did that all the time. But as he drew closer, he quickly realized that it wasn't a pair of black leather boots or a statue or any other kind of inanimate object. He slowed his pace as he approached the front door of the shop. And then the thing twitched its ears, opened its eyes, and looked straight at him.

Yes, that was definitely a cat.

Eren stopped dead in his tracks. He stood there, with his windbreaker slowly getting soaked through by the pouring rain, his eyes glued to the dark bundle of fur huddled underneath the front awning of the thrift shop. The cat did the same, fixing him with its narrow, almond-shaped eyes. Eren stared and a shiver ran down his spine. Was that cat... looking him in the eyes?

Eren took a cautious step closer, shielding himself from the rain under the dripping candy-striped awning. The cat didn't move. It just sat and kept it sharp gaze trained on him. It was almost as if it were waiting for something.

_What would a cat be waiting for? _ Eren wondered.

The cat didn't move an inch from its spot, even with the new addition of Eren taking up its personal space. It just wriggled a little in its place, curled its tail tighter around its paws and squeezed its eyes shut again. The cat seemed a little odd, now that Eren could see it up close. It was tiny, first of all. Even sitting up at its full height, the feline still looked like it could easily cram itself into a tissue box if it wanted to. Its fur was damp and matted, as if it had been sitting out in the rain for hours. Maybe even days. He ventured a step closer, and the cat's eyes flew open again.

Eren stopped dead. It was staring at him again.

He had never seen a cat with eyes like that before.

Eren didn't dare move. He couldn't risk scaring this cat away, not before he got a better look at its eyes. They were a clear, steely blue-grey color, reflective like mercury that seemed to change every time the cat blinked. Slowly, Eren knelt down in front of the tiny creature, lowering his knees to the drenched pavement as gently as he could. The cat watched his every move, leaning away from him when he tried to get closer. Eren sat back on his heels and stared at it, since there really wasn't much else he could do. The cat did the same, a wary look on its tiny black face. Well, as wary as a cat can possibly look.

"Hey," Eren said quietly. "Are you lost?"

The cat's eyes seemed to harden a little. Eren sighed. _What the hell am I doing? Why am I talking to a cat?!_

"Do you live at the thrift store? Are you the owner's cat? Hm?"

_Seriously. Why am I doing this? It's not like the thing is going to answer me._

The cat blinked and twitched its tail. Its paws shifted uncomfortably on the concrete, but it wasn't giving him much more of a reaction. Eren reached a hand out and tried to touch it.

And instantly regretted it as the cat bared its teeth and hissed.

Eren jerked his hand back. He gasped, his face flushed from the sudden shock. He should have been expecting that. He'd already known that cats aren't exactly the most sociable animals. Eren sat and stared at the cat while it straightened itself back out and watched him. He knew there was a correct way to approach cats. He just couldn't seem to remember it. His hands rolled up into fists over his legs as he dug through his brain, trying to resurface it. Armin had taught him this before. Something... something about scent...

_Oh, right. I should let him smell me first._

Eren took a deep breath and hesitantly reached his hand out again. The cat eyed it suspiciously, its mercurial gaze bouncing back and forth between the hand and his face. Eren bowed his head and let his eyes drop to the sidewalk. _Look submissive, look submissive..._

A moment later, something brushed against Eren's fingertips. He glanced sideways, back at the cat sitting in front of him. The creature had leaned forward, elegantly stretching itself out towards his hand, its nose hovering a fraction of an inch from his fingers. A few short puffs of air ghosted over his fingertips. The cat was sniffing him. A minute later it straightened back up and fixed its eyes on him again. Eren stared back. _Well, that's a start._

Ever so slowly, Eren stretched his arm out, inch by inch until it was hovering just over the cat's head. The feline stared up at it, as if it were confused about what Eren meant to do. Eren tentatively stretched his fingers out and brought them gently down onto the top of the cat's head. It didn't react. He breathed a sigh of relief and rubbed his fingertips along the top of the cat's head, stopping them at the back of its neck and scratching behind its ears. The cat sat still and held its head up against the pressure, its eyes narrowing into silver-blue slits.

A smile crept onto Eren's face. "Hey. You like that, don't you?"

As a response, the cat stood up on its small paws and arched its back. Eren ran his hand over its lithe, skinny body. He could feel the creature's ribs and spine through its damp, dirty fur. It opened its eyes and looked up at him again. He felt a pang of guilt.

"You don't belong to anyone, do you?" Eren murmured.

The cat looked up at him and squinted its eyes again.

Eren leaned forward and gently eased his free hand around the other side of the cat's tiny body. It reacted immediately, backing away and trying to wriggle its way out of Eren's reach, but Eren somehow managed to be faster. He tightened both his hands around the squirming cat and lifted it off of the pavement. The cat, of course, was having none of it. The feline writhed madly in Eren's hands, clawing at his fingers and trying its hardest to get loose. Eren gritted his teeth against the stinging feeling in his hands, stood up and pressed the small, furious furball to his chest. That seemed to calm it down. Once its paws were no longer dangling over open space, the cat stopped struggling and curled up in the crook of Eren's elbow, choosing to dig its claws into his windbreaker instead of his hands. Eren sighed and wrapped his arms around the little bundle of fur. It felt like it was shivering. Leaning his head down to protect the cat from the rain, Eren stepped out from underneath the thrift store awning and continued on his way home.

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><p>The cat was a surprisingly good passenger. Even though remaining walk back to the 1970s split-level where he lived was only ten minutes, he hadn't expected the little creature in his arms to sit still for so long. But it did.<p>

Eren stepped up onto the front porch, leaning his head down once again to shield the cat from the rainwater pouring off from the broken gutter overhead. He took one hand away from the cat to fish through his pocket for his keys, earning himself a sharp dig in the chest from the angry feline that, apparently, still didn't like being loosely held. He put his arm back once he'd unlocked the outer front door, then the one at the top of the small upgoing staircase inside the foyer.

Somewhere below him, the door of the other apartment clicked open.

"Hey, Eren!"

Eren turned around at the sound of a familiar voice. A small, skinny young man staggered up the downgoing staircase next to Eren's, his arms laden with heavy boxes. His longish blonde hair was crammed into a beanie and he was wearing his thick-rimmed glasses over his wide blue eyes. He looked up at Eren, a slight smile on his face.

Must have woken up too late to put his contacts in, Eren thought.

"Hey, Armin," he said cordially. "What've you got there?"

"Book donations," Armin replied, balancing the stacked boxes in his arms and stumbling up to the landing. "I had a lot of cleaning up to do, and the library is looking for some new material. I've read all of these at least ten times, so... out with the old, in with the new, I guess." He gave a tired little laugh and shrugged.

"Oh," Eren said. "You, uh... you need some help there?"

"No. Nope, I've got it," Armin said, shaking his head so fast his bangs swept back and forth over his forehead. He peered over the boxes and up at Eren standing in the doorway to the upper half of the house, otherwise known as his apartment. "Um... what are you carrying?"

"Huh?" Eren mumbled. He felt another dig at his chest. He glanced down, and a pair of angry blue eyes glared back at him, narrowing as if to say You forgot about me?

"It's... uh, it's a cat."

Armin blinked, his eyebrows quirking up and hiding behind his bangs. "A cat?"

"Yeah," Eren replied, making his way back down to the landing to show him the little black furball in his arms. "I found it outside the thrift store, and it seemed tame enough, so I took it home. It didn't have a collar or anything, and it looks like it's been neglected pretty badly. Even if it did belong to someone, I'm pretty sure they're not going to miss it."

Armin leaned over his boxes and took a second to observe the cat. The feline did the same to him. "Are you sure Mikasa's going to be okay with it?"

"Mikasa probably won't mind," Eren said, readjusting his arms when the cat started to squirm. "And even if she does... well, would you mind keeping it until we can find somewhere for it to stay?"

"Oh. I-I don't know. Um... I've got my classes, and the vet's office and everything else..." Armin's face flushed a little. He looked back down at the cat and his eyes started to soften. "But... I... Well..."

Eren smirked. He always knew that Armin had a soft spot for animals.

"I... I guess I could. But only if you can't take care of it. I have a fishtank, remember?"

"Yeah, I remember. Just keep it covered up." Eren smiled and rubbed behind the cat's ears again. "Thanks, man. I'll let you know how things go with Mikasa. See you later."

"Later, Eren." And with that, they split off, Armin out the door and Eren up to his apartment.

"That's Armin," Eren explained to the cat as soon as he'd shut the door behind them. "He lives downstairs. He visits up here a lot, and he's one of my best friends. So be nice to him, okay?"

The cat blinked at him once, then squirmed out of his arms and landed noiselessly on the floor. Eren watched as it scampered off into the corner of the living room and sat down there, its eyes flickering around while it took in its new surroundings.

Well, as long as it doesn't roll around anywhere, it probably won't be too much of a problem, Eren thought. Then he turned, walked into the kitchen and started cooking dinner.

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><p>Dinner was uneventful, since Mikasa didn't come home. Eren figured that she was working late and hadn't had the time to call him. Again. Eren fixed up a few prepackaged things from the fridge and found a can of tuna stowed away in one of the cabinets, which he left open on the floor for the cat. The feline dashed over at the smell and wound around his feet while he cooked, licking the can clean before Eren had even finished microwaving his own food. Eren sat on the kitchen counter, the way that Mikasa always yelled at him for, with his plate of leftover chicken and microwave-steamed rice resting in his lap. A minute later the cat jumped up to sit next to him and insisted on getting a piece. Eren had said no at first, but it didn't take long for the cat to convince him otherwise, mainly by clawing at his arm and dragging it away from his plate until Eren got too frustrated to keep staving it off. Eventually he gave in and let it have as much as it wanted. He figured that it hadn't gotten food from anyone in a while and it couldn't hurt too much if it was just once.<p>

Afterwards, things got much more interesting.

Eren already knew that Mikasa wouldn't appreciate him keeping an animal in their apartment. She'd appreciate it even less if it was one as filthy as the cat currently was. So he had decided a long time in advance what he was going to do about it. Although, given the current state of his hands, he was probably going to regret it later on.

He was going to give the cat a bath.

He tried to be covert about it. He kept the bathroom door closed while he filled the bath with warm water, just in case the cat knew what a running faucet sounded like. It didn't seem to care. He did his best to maintain a calm expression as he went about getting a towel out of the closet and digging around in his room for the bottle of pet shampoo that he took from Armin's apartment something like two years ago. The cat just kept wandering around the apartment, sniffing at whatever it found interesting and watching him as he traversed back and forth between the bathroom and wherever else he happened to be going. Setting up the bath itself was easy.

Getting the cat into the bathroom was another story.

It took Eren a whole eight minutes to figure out where the cat had wandered off to. It was hiding under his bed when he found it. He tried coaxing it out, which got him nothing but a condescending stare. So Eren tried to crawl under the bed and pull the cat out himself. This, of course, resulted in him getting stuck under the bed and the cat walking calmly out and going off somewhere else in the apartment. After even more wasted minutes of struggling, Eren managed to drag himself out from under the bed. He immediately searched the room to be sure that the cat wasn't still there, then shut his bedroom door and ventured out into the apartment only to find that the cat had now crammed itself under the couch. Dragging it out was another long and painful ordeal, one that involved a lot of hissing, growling, and even more teeth and claws getting embedded into Eren's already eviscerated hands. Finally Eren had the furious thing in his grasp. He made a break for the bathroom, kicked the door shut and dropped the cat on the floor. The animal yowled for a while went straight to the door. Eren stood firmly in front of it and stared down at the cat, hoping he could get the message of No, you are not going anywhere across. The cat cried, tried to push past him and clawed at his legs, but he still refused to move. Finally it retreated back into the middle of the room and sat down on the bath mat, glaring at him as if to say, Okay, you got me. What the hell do you want from me now?

To answer the cat's unspoken question, Eren got down on his knees, gingerly picked it up and lowered it into the bathtub.

Or tried to.

The cat reacted instantly. In seconds it went from an inanimate lump of fur to a thrashing, screaming demon trying to claw its way out of hell. Eren winced as the feline started shrieking and raking its claws over his arms, trying to free itself from his grasp. He kept his hands fastened around its scrawny body, not willing to let go until he'd at least gotten its fur wet. The cat had a completely different agenda in mind. It twisted itself around in Eren's hands until it had all four paws pushing up against his arms, digging every claw it had available into his flesh.

"Ow!"

Eren's hands spasmed in pain. In that split second, his grip faltered and the cat worked itself loose. It struggled for a second and tried to climb up his arms before its claws slipped and it crashed into the water.

Eren jerked his hands back, his breath hissing through his teeth. He looked down at his arms. They were bleeding all over, covered almost completely in slash marks and puncture wounds, all in neat little sets of four. Every single one of them stung like a bitch. Eren flexed his hands and winced at the burning sensation that any kind of movement seemed to produce. He stood up, holding his arms out in front of him and turned on the cold tap in the sink. He ran the ice water over his arms for a while, trying to clear some of the blood away and numb the pain. Once he was able to move his hands without wanting to scream, Eren opened the medicine cabinet and looked around for some kind of disinfectant. He took out the translucent blue bottle and set it on the sink, then dug a few cotton balls out of the short plastic drawer set next to the sink. He poured the disinfectant over the cuts in his skin, biting back a cry of pain as the stinging started to worsen, then soaked some into a cotton ball and started dabbing at his raw, bleeding arms. He sighed and started muttering to himself. How the hell can something so tiny cause so much damage?

"Stupid fucking cat..."

Eren froze. The cat. What had happened to the cat?

He'd been holding it, getting his arms lacerated and trying to lower it gently into the water, then he'd lost control of his hands and dropped it-

The cat was in the bathtub. Which was filled with water. And there wasn't any yowling or splashing or sounds of any sort.

Eren whirled around, his heart in his throat. Oh god, oh god, what have I done, I've drowned it, I fucking drowned a poor helpless cat, I can't believe I just-

The stupid fucking cat was sitting in the bathtub. With its head above the water. Perfectly alive.

Eren slumped back against the sink and breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh, thank god."

The cat lazily turned its head towards him and blinked, its eyes narrowing in resentment. It was sitting calmly in the few inches of warm water, its back slumped over and its tiny head hanging in defeat. It stared so venomously at him that Eren could practically hear its voice in his head.

What now, dipshit? it said.

Eren took a deep breath and cautiously approached the tub. He was waiting for the cat to react, to leap out of the water or go for his hands again or-

Or nothing.

The cat didn't even move.

Eren knelt down next to the bath and hesitantly stuck his hands into the water. The cat watched him, seeming amused by how scared he was of something one tenth his size. Eren cupped his hands under the water and lifted them up, drizzling a soft shower over the cat's head. Instead of flipping out again as he'd expected it to, the cat sat meditatively still and closed its eyes, letting the water trickle over its head and down its back. It looked almost as if it were enjoying itself.

"That's... weird," Eren murmured to himself as he dropped another handful of water onto the cat's head.

And things only got weirder.

It didn't take long for Eren to get the cat's fur wet. The only reason for that was the fact that the cat was so calm. Unlike the raging, shrieking furball that it had been only moments before, the cat had suddenly become as listless and compliant as a toy. Eren couldn't even begin to imagine why. Maybe it had just tired itself out and given up. But if that was the case, then why did it seem like it liked getting a bath so much?

Once the cat's fur was thoroughly soaked, Eren grabbed the pet shampoo bottle off the side of the sink and squirted some into his hand. The cat didn't make any moves against him when he poured the fresh-scented sludge onto its back and began rubbing it into its fur. Eren worked his fingers into the animal's dark, matted coat, being as gentle as he could as the shampoo turned itself into a lather. The cat closed its eyes as he did his best to massage the dirt out of its coat. And then he felt it vibrating underneath his fingertips.

Eren's eyes widened. The cat was purring?

Because he was giving it a bath?

Okay, that does not make any sense.

Eren shook the thought away as he went about cleaning up what must have been years of living in the streets had done to the little feline. The poor thing was so dirty that the water turned a faint shade of grayish-brown. The cat stayed limp and obedient the entire time, even when Eren lifted it out of the water and rolled it onto its back to get at its stomach. The cat didn't even panic when Eren pulled the plug out of the bath and turned the shower head on to rinse it off. By the time everything was over, the two of them were sitting quietly on the bathroom floor, Eren sweaty, bleeding and exhausted and the cat wrapped in a towel, curled up in a ball with his eyes half-closed.

Yes, his eyes. The cat was a male. Eren had found that out towards the end of its bath.

Eren sighed and leaned back against the wall, gazing tiredly at the little bundle on the bathroom floor. The cat looked so much happier now than it had been before. He was all bundled up in his towel, fluffy, clean and purring. His coat turned out to be a rich, glossy jet black without the layer of grime covering it up. Eren felt a touch of satisfaction. He'd done something good today. Even if that something was just helping out a stray cat.

And then, once again, he remembered Mikasa.

The satisfaction turned into guilt as he stared at the cat. His sister would probably be getting home soon. Even when she worked late, she always tried to get back before dark. And it had been getting dark earlier and earlier lately. If she came in and saw that there was a random cat running around, even one that Eren had just nearly killed himself getting clean...

He sighed again and slumped over against his knees. The cat heard the sound and looked up at him, his strange little silver-blue eyes opening a bit more. Eren gazed back at him. The cat blinked, then it opened its mouth and let out a bright, curious meow.

Eren couldn't help laughing. That was the first time the cat had spoken to him in something that wasn't some kind of a protest. He smiled and leaned over, pushing back the towel to scratch the cat behind the ears. "You're feeling a lot better now, aren't you?" he said.

The cat meowed again, as if it meant to answer him. Eren didn't understand, so he just took it as a yes.

Eren sat back against the wall, his hand gone from the cat's head. The cat didn't seem to mourn the loss too much. He simply wriggled around in his towel-nest and buried himself a little deeper. He closed his eyes and nestled his head between his tiny black paws. The sight was oddly heartwarming. Eren wanted to say Awwwww or something along those lines, but he didn't want to risk it. Something told him the cat would be offended by that.

"You're enjoying the hell out of this, aren't you?" Eren said to the cat.

He started to purr again, and that was the only response Eren got.

Another yes, I guess.

"This probably means you'll want to stay here for a while."

The cat didn't bother replying that time.

"If you're going to be staying here, you're gonna need to have a name. I can't just keep calling you cat."

Eren knelt over him and poked at the towel. "Hey. Are you listening? I said I'm gonna need to give you a name, so you need to pay attention. Okay?"

The cat raised his head and snatched Eren's hand in between his teeth.

"Whoa-" Eren cried out. He jerked his hand back. "Okay. Well, at least I know you're still awake." He settled back down on the bath mat and stared some more at the cat, as if staring at him would somehow inspire him to come up with a suitable name. But, no matter how he tried, nothing would come up. So he decided to start with something basic. Or borderline generic. Either description would have worked.

"How about Midnight? Does Midnight sound good to you?"

The cat stared at him, its face the physical representation of Are you fucking kidding me?

"Yeah, you're right. I need to try harder," Eren agreed. He folded up his legs and stared at him some more. "Maybe... Bruce? Like Bruce Wayne? You'll be Batman."

The cat didn't respond.

"I guess that one doesn't work either... I don't know. Hm... I found you outside a thrift shop. How about Macklemore?"

Eren could have sworn he saw the cat roll its eyes.

"Aw, come on. It's funny."

The cat straightened up and sat on his haunches, keeping his stare level with Eren's. It must have expected for Eren to need his approval for the name, and obviously he was still unimpressed.

"Okay. I'll keep thinking," Eren said. He held the cat's gaze and rested his chin in his hand. He started running through every halfway-decent cat name he could come up with as fast as he possibly could. "Magic?"

The cat didn't respond.

"Ash?"

Still nothing.

"Gerard? Like from My Chemical Romance?"

He blinked, but didn't do much else.

"Um... Licorice? Jack? Blackjack? What about Cedric? Um... Severus? Draco?"

The cat had stopped listening to him and gone back to the apparently important task of licking his paws. Eren sighed and stopped rattling off the list of names. It was obvious the cat didn't care for any of them. He stared at the cat for a while longer, even though he'd already realized it didn't help at all. After a long time and no new suggestions, he offered up the first name that popped into his head. He didn't know where it had come from. All of a sudden, it was just there.

"Levi?" he said hopelessly.

The cat stopped licking himself and his head spun towards Eren, so fast that his bright pink tongue was still sticking out of his mouth. He blinked, his mercury-blue eyes wide, licked his nose and meowed inquisitively.

What is it? He seemed to be saying.

A smile broke out on Eren's face. He said the name again, laughter bubbling up into his voice. "Levi," he repeated.

The cat chirped again and stood up, the towel around him falling loose.

"You like Levi? That's what you want your name to be?"

The cat took a few steps toward Eren and mewed once. Eren reached out and rubbed his fingers over the top of his head. The cat nuzzled him approvingly back.

"Alright. Levi it is then."


	2. Chapter 2

**I have returned.**

**I'm trying to get this fanfiction posted while 'tis still the season. But, being that I'm still working on it, I have no idea how likely that is to happen. Like the last update, I haven't gone back over this one to edit it a thousand times like I've done with some of my other works. But I still think it's okay. **

**Thanks for all of the comments so far! And thanks for letting me know that I'm not the only one who has an incurable addiction to cats. :l**

**Remember. Tumblr. asking-appelia. That's me. Follow, if you'd care to.**

**Thanks to my fluffball Pudge for giving me ideas for the story line and my fandom friend no-one-recognizes-my-tshirts for basically giving me my pen name. She also has a tumblr. I follow it. it's pretty cool.**

**Now I'm gonna shut up and let everyone read.**

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><p>Mikasa came home around eight that night.<p>

Eren hadn't been all that worried about Levi running up to greet Mikasa before he had a chance to tell her what he'd done. He didn't seem like a very social creature, even for a cat. So he decided to let Levi wander around the apartment while he broke the news to Mikasa himself. Once the bathroom door was open and Levi realized he had his freedom, he dashed out into the apartment and immediately crammed himself back under the couch. Eren stared after him.

_Weird,_ he thought. _It's like he thinks something's gonna snatch him up and eat him if he doesn't have somewhere t_o _hide._

Well, having a cat who hides a lot was certainly better than having one who would come up and rub the legs of whoever walked through the door. At least it was for the time being.

Eren was sitting in the living room and watching reruns when he heard the noise of a key clicking the front door open, first in the doorknob lock and then the deadbolt.

"I left it open," he said as the door swung open. Mikasa walked in, her trench coat dripping on the floor and her scarf soaked to a weird, darkened shade of red.

"Hey, Eren," she said, seeming to have missed what he'd just said.

"Hi," Eren replied, grabbing the remote and shutting the tv off. He got up from the couch and went over to where his sister was unloading her bag and dropping her keys onto the kitchen counter. "How was the diner?"

"Horrible," Mikasa deadpanned. "Keith made me stay late and clean up the kitchen again."

"I could tell," Eren mused. "He does that a lot, doesn't he?"

"Ugh." Mikasa growled under her breath and crossed the apartment to drop limply down onto the couch. "A lot doesn't even cut it."

"He's paying you extra for it, though. Right?"

"That depends. I'll have to wait and see what he decides to do at the end of the week."

Eren mimicked Mikasa's low, annoyed growl and perched himself on the arm of the couch. "Well... you're finished with your term paper for American lit at least, right?"

Mikasa exhaled slowly through her nose and rubbed her eyes with her fingertips. "Yeah. I guess. I mean, I've still got to revise it and everything before tomorrow, but-"

"Screw the revisions. It's done. Just get some sleep and turn it in tomorrow."

Mikasa moved one of her hands to peer condescendingly up at Eren.

"Hey, I'm just saying you don't always have to try so hard. You're going to wear yourself out."

Mikasa groaned and draped one arm loosely over her eyes. "Fine. I'll sleep. I can just revise it during lunch tomorrow."

Eren sighed in exasperation. But there was nothing else he could do. He de-perched himself from the couch arm and crossed over into the kitchen to put a kettle on to make tea. A second later, a soft scuffle in the next room let him know that Mikasa had gotten up from the couch. He heard her bedroom door creak open, then more scuffling as Mikasa made her way to the bathroom and shut the door behind her. The apartment filled with a soft hiss and spattering sound, kind of like the rain that was still bombarding the house outside. Mikasa was showering. That meant Eren had at least ten minutes to find out where Levi had gone.

He ran to the couch first. Levi wasn't hiding under it anymore. He wasn't anywhere else in the living room, either. Eren went into his room next. Still no sign of Levi.

A shivering sense of paranoia crawled down Eren's spine as he straightened up from checking under his bed. He slowly turned back toward the doorway to his room. This was a small apartment. There was only one other place that Levi could have gone.

Eren dashed out of his room and into Mikasa's.

He walked in to see that the closet door was cracked open. Still, he checked under the bed first, since under things seemed to be where the tiny cat best liked to hide. Levi wasn't there. But the closet door still was, still standing just slightly ajar. Eren cautiously made his way over and flicked the light on inside. Levi was sitting in the middle of a pile of Mikasa's shoes and clothing. He looked up at Eren and sneezed at the stale smell of the dirty laundry in the hamper she had shoved into the corner. Eren sighed with relief.

_I should probably be keeping better track of this cat._

Without a second to spare, Eren lunged in and scooped Levi up into his arms. The cat squirmed in protest, but started to calm down once Eren had him held securely. Eren rushed back to his room and kicked the door shut behind him. He dumped Levi unceremoniously onto the bed. The feline rolled over once before digging his claws into the bedspread and finding his footing again. He glared indignantly up at the human in front of him and lashed his tail.

"Sorry," Eren said earnestly. "She doesn't know you're here. You can't go in there until I tell her about you."

Levi blinked. Eren wasn't sure if that meant he understood or not.

"Stay here," he told him. "I'll get things sorted out." And leaving it at that, he walked out of his room, leaving the light on and closing the door behind him.

Mikasa was already out of the shower and in the kitchen by the time Eren returned to it. She had taken the kettle off of the lit stovetop and was foraging around in the cabinet for the boxes of tea that they always kept around.

"You left the kettle on," she said.

"Sorry," Eren replied mechanically,

"You probably should have been watching it. Nice of you to make tea, though."

"You seemed tired, so I thought maybe I would do it tonight for a change." He reached up toward another of the cabinets and pulled the door open. "Hey... when was the last time we ran the dishwasher?"

"I don't know. A few days ago, maybe. Why?"

"We're out of teacups."

"No, we're not," Mikasa said. She nodded at the sink, which happened to be overflowing with dishes.

Eren gave his sister a deadened look. "Right now?"

"Well, what else are we going to do with this?" She picked up the steaming kettle and waved it in front of Eren's face.

Eren shrank back. "Jesus, Mikasa! Watch where you swing that thing! You're gonna burn someone!"

"Then get washing."

Eren rolled his eyes and turned back to the messy pile of used tableware that used to be their kitchen sink. After unearthing two mugs from the clutter, he set them aside and sorted the rest out, cramming everything into the dishwasher at once, then dropped a soap packet in and slammed the door shut. The mugs could probably be hand-washed once they were done with their tea.

A few minutes later, the two of them were sitting on the living room couch, both curled up around a warm mug of steeped liquid happiness. Eren took a slow, lazy sip of the vanilla chai that Mikasa had picked out for him. The tea was still hot and burned his tongue a little, but he didn't mind. It felt just right after the cold, dreary day he'd just suffered through.

"So," Mikasa prompted, blowing steam off her mug of Tension Tamer. "I pretty much made you go deaf talking about how shitty my day was. How was yours?"

Eren looked thoughtfully at his tea for a second. "Good, I guess," he said indifferently. "Not much happened, really. Went to class in the morning. Did homework through lunch. Went to work at the cafe for the afternoon. I got out at five, then..."

_Then I found the cat._

"Then what?"

"Nothing," Eren said, punctuating the story with another sip of tea. He took a breath, hoping that the soft chai smell would calm his nerves. 'Hey, Mikasa..."

"What is it?" she asked. Her perceptive grey eyes met his. They seemed tired. Overworked. Underpaid.

Eren could almost guarantee himself that she would not take the news well.

"I, um... well, on my way back from work today, I... Okay. You know it was raining. And... um... I was walking. Back here. And I passed by that thrift shop on the way, the one I go by, like, every day. You know, the one owned by that one weird old guy with the moustache? Anyway, I was passing by there, and... er, I saw this... th-there was a...

"Eren," Mikasa cut in. Her eyes were glaring daggers into him. Eren's mouth snapped shut. "Are you trying to tell me something?"

Eren took another deep breath. His words seemed to fall over each other as they tumbled out of his mouth. "Mikasa, we have a cat now."

Mikasa stared blankly at him for what felt like forever. Eren was surprised that his head didn't explode from the intensity in her eyes. The look on her face was probably the same one she would have had if Eren had told her he was pregnant. It was the same thing, really. Either way, they would have another little thing that they had to take care of.

Things were silent for an uncomfortably long time. And then...

"What?"

"We have a cat," Eren repeated, slowly, as if Mikasa were suddenly hard of hearing.

"How the hell do we have a cat?"

"I found him," Eren explained. "When I was walking home. He was sitting out in front of the thrift store, and it was cold, and he was completely soaked. I... I just felt so bad for him. I couldn't leave him there."

"So you brought him home?!" Mikasa exploded. Eren jumped, almost splashing tea all over himself. God, Mikasa could be scary when she was pissed off.

"Well, what was I supposed to do?"

"Eren, any sensible person would have called animal control and gotten it sent to a shelter. What the hell were you thinking? That thing could have rabies or something!"

"He doesn't have rabies, Mikasa!" Eren objected, trying to keep his voice calm. He wasn't doing a very good job. "Believe me, I hang around Armin enough to know how rabid animals act. And so do you. And I'm pretty sure you were there too when he talked about all the things they do to animals in-"

"It doesn't matter, Eren!" Mikasa shouted, cutting him short. "You shouldn't have brought it home. We can't take care of it. We're both way too busy as it is, and we can't pay for all the extra crap we're going to need to take care of the stupid thing. Think about it, Eren! For all we know, it-"

"He," Eren corrected.

Mikasa growled. "Fine. For all we know, _he_ might have been better off in the street than living with us."

"Mikasa, he was stuck outside! He was soaking wet, he looked like he hadn't eaten in weeks, and I don't even know what else had happened to him before I found him! At least here, he has a place to stay!"

"Eren, you aren't listening to me," Mikasa said, her tone starting to calm down again. "You need to think these things through before you do them. You're not Armin. You're not a vet. You don't have the money or skills to be taking care of anything other than yourself. You can't just take in every mangy stray that you pick up on the street."

"Levi is _not_ a mangy stray," Eren said obstinately.

Mikasa's face went rigid. "Please, _god,_ tell me you didn't already give it a name."

Eren narrowed his eyes and kept them level with Mikasa's as he burned himself with his tea again. "I did," he declared. "It's Levi. And I really wish you would stop calling him _it_. He's got a gender, you know."

Mikasa let slip a heavy sigh and pressed a hand to her forehead, raking her fingers into her damp hair. "Oh my god," she muttered. "Eren, how the hell are we going to take care of this thing? We can't pay for it, we don't have the time for it-"

"_You_ don't have the time for it," Eren cut in.

"And you do?"

"Yes. And if I don't have time, I'll make time. I'll be the one to take care of Levi. I'll do everything. Food, litter, whatever. I'll take care of it. I'll pay for whatever he needs with my own money. You won't need to do a single thing. It'll be like having a fish. You won't even know he's here."

Mikasa eyed him suspiciously. "Okay," she said warily. "Fine. If you really want to keep him, then fine. He's yours. But he's yours only. I swear, if I have to do a single thing for this stupid cat, we are getting rid of it. Got it?"

Eren nodded. He knew there wouldn't be any further argument after that point.

Mikasa paused for a second to take a sip of her Tension Tamer. "So..." she said, significantly more calmly than before. "Where is this cat you were talking about? If he's going to be staying here, I want to see him."

"He's in my room," Eren said. He leaned over to place his mug on the tiny end table at his end of the couch. "I'll go get him." With that, he got up from the couch and crossed the apartment to get Levi out of his room.

Only to find that the door was open. And Levi was gone.

_Shit._

Eren glanced over his shoulder. Mikasa was still in the living room, focused on her cup of tea and trying to unwind herself from the tight knot that the day had twisted her into. He flicked the light in his room on and rushed in. He checked everywhere he could possibly think of. Under the bed, in the closet, even in the tiny gap of space between his dresser and the wall. It was hard to imagine any kind of space Levi wouldn't be able to wedge himself into.

The only problem was that he wasn't in any of those places.

Eren stood back and looked disheartenedly around the room, letting a long, worried sigh rush out of his lungs. Nope. Levi was definitely not in here. He turned back to the door and peered out into the living room. Mikasa wasn't there anymore. Eren wondered for a second where she could have gone.

That was when he heard her scream.

"Eren!"

Eren shot out of his room and out into the center of the apartment, his head whipping around in circles. He couldn't see Mikasa anywhere. But her bedroom door was open. That could only mean one thing.

"Eren, get in here!" Mikasa shouted again.

Eren didn't hesitate to do as she said.

Mikasa was standing at the foot of her bed, leaning back on her dresser with her arms folded tightly over her chest. She looked up when she heard the door creak open and fixed an angry glare on Eren.

"What is it?" he asked, even though he already knew what the answer probably was.

Mikasa nodded toward the bed. "I thought you said he was in your room."

Eren followed his sister's cue and looked down at the bed. And let out a low groan of frustration.

Levi was sitting right smack in the middle of Mikasa's bed. He'd nestled himself right up against the pillows, curled up with his feet tucked underneath him and his tail wrapped snugly around his legs. He looked so comfortable. Not to mention smug.

"Levi," Eren groaned. "How the hell did you even..."

Levi didn't respond. He just looked squarely at Eren, his little black nose held up in triumph. Eren sighed. He'd never known a cat could look so satisfied with itself. And Levi certainly did look proud of what he'd done. Especially the thin layer of black fur that he'd managed to leave on the whitest portion of Mikasa's cherry blossom bedspread.

"So... this is Levi?" she asked.

Eren exhaled slowly and looked down at the cat in defeat. "Yes," he murmured.

"How did he get in here?"

"I don't know!" Eren said defensively. "My door was closed. I swear to god it was!"

Mikasa rolled her eyes and sighed. "Do you think the cat just opened the door by himself?"

"N-no!" Eren quickly replied. Even though, in all honesty, he wasn't too sure.

Mikasa took a step toward the bed and knelt over on the edge. "Okay," she said. She extended her hands toward the tiny black bundle in the middle of her pillows. "Come on, Levi. It's time for you to go."

Of course, that approach got her exactly the same reaction that it had gotten Eren. Which consisted mainly of a lot of bared claws and hissing.

Mikasa quickly took her hands back. "Holy shit! I thought you said he was tame!"

"He is," Eren said, rushing to his sister's side. "Just... not all the time. Here. Let me try." He nudged Mikasa out of the way and knelt down on the edge of the bedspread. Levi watched him, not even bothering to shift out of his meatloaf-like position. Slowly, Eren reached a hand towards him, aiming for the back of his head as if he meant to scratch him behind the ears. Levi didn't seem to mind all that much. He still hadn't moved. Then, as soon as his fingertips had made contact with Levi's fur, his other hand shot out and grabbed the cat around the waist.

Needless to say, Levi wasn't happy about it and tried to squirm away as soon as Eren's hands had fastened around him. But a human can be just as stubborn as any cat. Eren managed to hold Levi's skinny, writhing body still in one hand while he unhooked his claws from the bedspread with the other. Once he'd detached him from Mikasa's bed, Eren wrapped his arms around the struggling cat and pressed him against his chest, so far the only proven method for keeping Levi still while holding him.

But that didn't stop Levi from angrily sinking his teeth into Eren's hand.

"Fuck- Ow!" Eren jerked his hand away from Levi's face, scrambling to hold him with one arm. As soon as his captor's hold was compromised, Levi jumped out of Eren's arms, hit the floor on all fours and ran out of the room.

Eren heard Mikasa scoff as he shook the stinging feeling out of his hand. "Oh, I see," she said sarcastically. "You've definitely charmed him. You must be a cat whisperer or something."

"Shut up," Eren snarled. He looked down at his hand, fresh blood starting to ooze out from the new set of puncture wounds. He took in a sharp, hissing breath through his teeth. "Ow... I don't know why... he's so temperamental..."

"Probably because he's a stray." Mikasa took a step toward him. "Here. Let me see."

Eren looked up from his hand and glanced at his sister. She held a hand out to him, waiting for him to place his into her palm for her to see. He thought very seriously about doing it, but stopped himself before he had even gotten close. Because, of course, the latest bite wound was not the first. Far from it. He'd already upset her enough for one night.

"N-no, it's fine."

"Eren, he just bit you. Come on, let me see."

Eren wrapped his less-injured hand around the other. "No. I told you, it's fine. I'm not even bleeding."

He was. That much Mikasa definitely knew. "Eren, I just want to make sure. Give me your hand and let me-"

"Mikasa, no."

"Eren..." She reached out and went for his wrist. Eren snatched it back. Annoyance flared in her eyes. "Eren! Stop it!"

"Mikasa, it's fine! You don't have to-"

"I want to! Let me-"

"No!"

"Eren!"

"I said no!"

"Come on, don't be a baby! Just let me-"

"Mikasa, stop it!"

"Give me your hand!"

"No! Mikasa, stop!"

"Eren... just... let... me... agh!"

Mikasa snatched Eren's arm and dragged him back towards her, hand-first. Eren tried to wrench it away from her, but gave up quickly enough. He let his hand go limp as his sister held it between her own and stretched his fingers out, exposing the newest bite mark. As well as all of the other ones.

"Oh my god," Mikasa murmured, turning Eren's hand over in hers. "Eren, what the hell happened? Did you try to juggle him or something?"

Eren sighed. "I gave him a bath."

Mikasa turned back to him, her eyes blazing. "You gave him a _bath_?!"

"Yeah," Eren admitted weakly. "Well... h-he was really dirty when I first brought him home, and I knew that... even if you did let me keep him, you wouldn't want him running around the apartment while he was still gross, since he might roll around on the couch or something, so..."

"Oh," Mikasa said quietly. She let go of Eren's hand. "That was... nice of you, I guess."

"Thanks. I nearly lost my arms trying to do it."  
>"I said it was nice of you, not that it wasn't stupid that you did it in the first place."<p>

"I know." Eren sighed in defeat and looked down at his hands. "So... are you mad at me for this too now, or-"

"Yes," Mikasa snapped. Eren felt his face starting to turn red. "But not as much as I was for you bringing him here in the first place."

Eren looked up at her, brightening up just the slightest bit. "Was?"

"Yeah," Mikasa said flatly. "Was."

"So... you're not mad anymore, right?"

"Not really. I mean, you said you would be the one taking care of him, right?"

Eren nodded.

"So as long as it stays that way, it should be fine. Now get into the bathroom. I need to clean you up. Your hands are a fucking mess."

"Okay," Eren said.

That settled it. Levi was now officially his cat.


	3. Chapter 3

**I am definitely not going to have this finished by the time the story is supposed to end.**

**Then again, if I did I would have had to post two chapters in a single day. And there is no way in hell that I have the time to do that.**

**ANYWAY,**

**Here is more story for whoever is keeping up with this fluffy little dorkfest. It's still not finished. I've decided to try and keep at least two chapters ahead of where I'm posting. So far I've managed to keep that up, but updates are still slow. When was the last one I even made on this? A week and a half ago? Something like that. I really haven't been keeping up with this.**

**TIME FOR MORE SHAMELESS TUMBLR PROMOTING. **

**asking-appelia is my author blog. lord-ravioli is my main. If you feel like following either of them, I'd reccommend my author one. It is far less likely to get drowned in reposts than my main one. I post art, fiction links, pictures of my face, and basically whatever else I feel like belongs there. So go check it out if you want.**

**And now, story time.**

* * *

><p>Levi didn't do much during his first few days in Eren's apartment.<p>

The two resident humans went about their lives just as they always had. Well, Mikasa did. As far as Eren was concerned, she and the cat would be seeing as little of each other as possible. Which wasn't really much of a problem, since he barely ever saw Levi either. The cat spent most of his time hiding in the deepest, darkest recesses of the apartment. The most Eren ever found out about the cat's location was whether or not he was in Mikasa's room. When he was, Eren shooed him out. Other than that, he rarely ever knew where Levi was.

Eren skipped out on his hours at the cafe the day after bringing Levi home. He had a cat now, and that meant he had some shopping to do. He bought a bag of cat food, a bag of litter, a disposable tray and a few toy mice for Levi to bat around if he got bored. When Eren got home, he left a few out in the living room and waited. Eventually the little black cat came out for a few sparing minutes to sniff at his new offerings. Eren left a bowl of food and water on a spare dish towel in his room, which Levi promptly ignored. He did the same to the tray of litter that Eren left by his closet. Eren wondered for a while if Levi wasn't litter-trained, but eventually realized that he hadn't made a mess anywhere in the apartment just yet. So the cat's cleanliness remained a mystery.

Just like his ability to open doors.

Eren was home alone again when Levi finally came out of hiding.

It was later than usual. In order to make up for all the days he had missed, Eren had been forced to work an extra two hours at the cafe. He would be doing the same for the next week, according to Mikasa's orders. He had to earn enough to pay for the extra expenses that Levi presented somehow. Then there were his classes to worry about. He was already dropping fast in calculus. He'd never been proficient in math, and a whole twelve years of education hadn't changed that. Even though he was going for an English major, he still had his required classes to get out of the way. He knew that he wouldn't have any time to search for Levi that night. He only had a few more hours before he would have to get to sleep in order to wake up on time for his first class the next morning. Which just so happened to be calc. Which he also just so happened to have a test in. And Eren was getting a little sick of failing those. So he'd promised himself that he would use every minute that he had for studying.

Eren dropped his backpack on the countertop in the kitchen when he walked through the door and ripped the zipper open, yanking his textbook out and flipping it open. He read snatches of the text every now and again as he heated up a bowl of condensed chicken noodle soup for himself. Once that was done, he turned back to the fridge to get himself a bottle of water before taking everything back to his room.

It was then that Levi decided to walk into the kitchen.

Eren nearly had a heart attack when he turned around to see Levi standing on the kitchen counter and sniffing at the bowl of soup. He gasped and jumped back, effectively smacking his back into the corner of the fridge. He winced and twisted his arm behind himself to rub at the new sore spot as he approached the counter.

"Levi, no," he scolded gently, lifting the cat away from the countertop and placing him on the floor. Levi looked up at him and meowed insistently.

"Are you hungry?" Eren asked. He didn't know why he had bothered in the first place. Levi only ever came out and talked to him for one reason. "I left out a bowl of food out for you. Go eat that. This is people food."

Levi meowed again, keeping his eyes fixed on Eren's. After what was probably the dumbest staring match Eren had ever participated in, he sighed and gave up. "Okay," he said. "Fine. You win. I'll get you something." With that, he crossed the kitchen to dig through the cabinet and see if he had any more cans of tuna lying around. And, of course, he did. He just about always did. He set it down on the counter and cracked the lid open, then turned to drain the saltwater out in the sink.

Just in time to see Levi sitting on the counter again, face-deep in his bowl of soup.

Eren didn't even know what to think. Or say. He opened his mouth to scold Levi again, but for some reason the reprimanding words got stuck. Something else came out instead.

"What the _fuck._"

Levi looked up from the bowl at the sound of Eren's voice. The cat stared at him for a second, looking as smug as a cat possibly can, then dipped his head back down and continued lapping at the soup as if Eren had never been talking to him in the first place.

Eren rolled his eyes and sighed. _Okay, maybe it's not so bad. It's a bowl of canned soup. Not like that's a rare gem or anything. I could just look at this as a lesson. Maybe I'm supposed to learn something from this._

Like when the cat wants something, he gets it. No questions asked.

Yeah, that sounded about right.

Eren used the abandoned can of tuna that had been originally intended for Levi to make himself a sandwich, then took everything he had left into his room. He left the bowl out on the counter for Levi to finish, since he knew the cat wouldn't be moving from it until he was done. Once he'd relocated all of his belongings to his room, he closed the door, cracked his notes open and dove straight into studying.

His mind started wandering after about an hour. But he did his best to rein it back in. It proved a lot more difficult that Eren would have liked. Finding derivatives and sketching a tangent curve correctly wasn't exactly easy when he sidetracked and forgot what he was doing halfway through the problem. But he still forced himself to keep going. He was determined not to get dragged down into any remedial classes that year. He'd already had to do that as a freshman for chemistry. It hadn't been fun. And it hadn't done much to motivate him to keep going at it, either.

Then, as if the total silence in his room weren't distracting enough, the doorknob started clicking.

Eren looked up from his notes and turned towards the door, his neck aching in protest. He straightened himself up and pushed his head as far to the left as it would go, getting a few satisfying cracks out of his vertebrae. He did the same to the right side, then got up from the bed to go open the door. He didn't remember locking it. He wondered briefly if Mikasa had come home yet and was looking for him. But if it was her, she probably would have said something by then.

The door swung open, and Levi was hanging onto the doorknob on the other side.

Eren let out a soft, breathy laugh. He leaned over to lift the little cat away from the knob and squished him against his chest. As usual, Levi squirmed at first, then calmed down once Eren had his arms underneath him instead of letting his legs hang down over nothing. He stuck his claws into the fabric of Eren's shirt and climbed up his chest, resting his front paws on his shoulder.

"Is that what you were doing this whole time?" Eren asked, giving the cat a scratch between his shoulders. "Is that how you open doors, huh?"

Levi didn't answer. Eren hadn't expected him to. He perched his cat in between his arm and shoulder as he walked out into the apartment to take a look around. Everything was quiet. The bowl that had at one point been filled with chicken soup and now had a puddle of cold, slimy residue in the bottom was still sitting on the counter. Eren placed Levi on the counter while he rinsed the bowl out and stuck it into the dishwasher. Mikasa's keys were splayed out on one of the little end tables by the couch, her bookbag lying sprawled on the floor next to it. _That's weird_, Eren thought. _I never heard her come in. I must have been more focused than I thought._

Eren picked Levi up again and perched him back on his shoulder, then made his way carefully over to Mikasa's bedroom door. It was open, just a crack, and the room inside was dark. Slowly, as quietly as he could, even though the doors in their apartment hadn't been fixed since 1987 and squeaked constantly, Eren pushed the door open. There was a lump sprawled out across the bed, a dark shape that looked vaguely like a human. Eren sighed. It was Mikasa, passed out and lying facedown with her head buried in the pillows. Exhausted.

_As usual._

Eren carefully pulled the door closed again. She wouldn't be getting up anytime soon. He couldn't even imagine what Keith must have put her through that day. He just hoped that she'd be getting paid extra for all the work she was doing. He glanced over at the bundle of fur clinging to his shoulder. _Is she doing because of you?_ he wondered.

Levi blinked serenely. Eren wasn't sure if the cat knew what he was thinking or not. He'd heard of animals being able to sense that sort of thing before. But he'd never thought anything of it. Well, not until he had one to prove it to him, anyway.

_No,_ Levi seemed to be saying. _She's doing it for you._

Eren pushed the thoughts away and went back to his room. He shouldn't have been thinking about telepathic cats and how guilty his sister made him feel when she overworked herself. He had to think about calculus. He had to study and keep passing his classes to make sure that the massive investment nearly all of their savings were going to wasn't going to waste.

Eren shut the door behind him and placed Levi on his bed. The cat jumped off and scampered underneath while Eren sat down on the mattress and went back to his painstaking note reading and repetitive practice problems. He barely noticed Levi when he crept out from under the bed a while later. The small feline stood sentry on the floor and looked up at Eren, his silvery-blue eyes bright and curious. Eren glanced at him for a second, but went back to his work just as quickly. Levi would probably lose interest soon enough and go to sleep or whatever he did when left to his own devices. But, instead of whatever Eren was expecting him to do, Levi jumped up onto the bed and sat down across from him on the other side of the pile of books.

Eren looked up at him again. The cat was sitting up straight, his tail curled tightly around his paws and his ears pricked in interest. Levi looked down at the notes and textbook in front of him, as if he were studying them. It was a little weird.

More than a little weird.

It looked almost like he was reading the text.

But that was stupid. Cats can't read.

Eren tried to ignore him and keep working. And Levi stayed there and watched him as he did.

Hours later, Eren finally flicked his notes shut and shoved them off the bed. He was done with studying. His neck had cramped up all over again, his head was pounding and he felt as if he were going to drop dead any second. But it was worth it. He didn't think that he could forget the formulas if he tried. He glanced at the clock. It was almost ten. He figured he should probably take a shower and get some sleep. He had to get up early for his class the next morning.

Levi was still sitting on the bed when Eren got up. He hadn't moved an inch from where he'd settled when he had first popped up from under the bed to watch Eren study. The human felt a twinge of curiosity. A bit of confusion as well.

_Has he been watching me this whole time?_

Eren thought nothing of it and walked out of his room to go take a shower.


	4. Chapter 4

**HAPPY HALLOWEEN.**

**October is basically over, and this story is still nowhere near finished. See? I told you it wouldn't be done withing the timeframe of the story. But whatever. Not like I was expecting it to in the first place. Good news is, you won't have to wait until next October because I am NOT confining this story to that month. So I guess that means you con go ahead and disregard the title from this point onward.**

**I want to thank everyone who has reviewed so far. As anyone who's read my crap before, I LOVE hearing what people think of it. But there is one thing that people have been asking over and over and that is WHEN IS LEVI GOING TO TURN INTO A HUMAN? And my only answer to that is WAIT. There is more to this story than meets the eye .It gets a lot more complicated than this! I can promise you that much.**

**You might have to wait until the next chapter to find out about that, though.**

**SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION TIME. asking-appelia is my tumblr author blog. go look at it. follow if you're interested. Being that I only have eight followers at this point, I would really appreciate it.**

**And now, story time.**

* * *

><p>There was a knock on the door early on Saturday morning.<p>

"Eren? Hey, Eren, are you awake?"

He was. But not really.

Eren cracked one eye open at the sound of rapid tapping on the door. There was someone outside. They were saying something, but he couldn't really understand what it was. He rolled over lazily in his bed and pulled the edge of his comforter over his head. His eyelids drifted back down. Then the knocking started all over again.

"Eren?" the visitor called again.

Eren pulled his blankets tighter over his head. So that idiot was still trying to get his attention. He really didn't feel up to getting out of bed and answering the door. He'd worked his ass off two nights earlier, and he'd passed his calc test with something more than a just-barely-cutting-it grade (for once). He felt as if he could sleep for a year. And that was exactly what he intended to do. At least he would, if that goddamned knocking would stop.

_Where the hell is Mikasa? Why won't she answer it?_

Eren's bedroom door creaked open. Soft footfalls scampered into the room and something small and heavy landed directly on Eren's back. Four sets of tiny, razor-sharp daggers sank through the comforter and pricked at Eren's skin.

It was Levi, reminding him that_ Mikasa is at work, dumbass._

Eren pushed the comforter down to his shoulders and craned his neck around to look at the irate feline. Levi fixed him with his sharp little eyes and stuck him with his claws again. Eren wormed an arm out of the covers to shove him away, and Levi deftly moved out of his reach before he had the chance. The visitor knocked on the door again. Levi meowed. Eren sighed heavily and dragged himself out from under the covers. He glanced at the clock. It was almost nine thirty. After another melodramatic sigh, Eren pushed himself to his feet and staggered out of his room, wondering how the hell Mikasa could have gotten up so early and gone off to work when he was still barely even functional yet.

The visitor started knocking for the twenty thousandth time when Eren opened the door. Armin's hand froze in mid-air, inches away from hitting his friend in the face.

"Oh," he murmured, his eyes even wider than usual. "H-hi, Eren."

"Hmnnnnhey," Eren grumbled in response. He reached up to rub at his blurry, half-closed eyes and blinked a few times. No matter what he did, he just couldn't get his brain to wake up. "Why are you coming up here so early?"

"Early? I've been up since eight, so it's not really all that- Oh, wait. Did I wake you up?" Armin's face drew into a slight frown. "I-I'm sorry, I thought that, you know, since Mikasa got up for work and everything, maybe-"

"Nah, it's fine," Eren mumbled. "You wanna come in?"

"Um... sure." Armin stepped inside, and Eren pushed the door shut behind him. He was carrying a cheap drawstring sports bag full of textbooks, which he dropped next to the end table.

"What did you bring those for?" Eren asked.

"I've got a few hours of work at the vet's office after lunch," Armin replied. "I also have some studying to do, and some assigned reading and stuff, so I figured that if I manage to catch a break at work..." He shrugged. "I might as well."

"Oh," Eren mumbled. "I get it." Actually, he didn't. How would Armin be able to find enough spare time at his job to do all of that? Honestly. Sometimes he was just like Mikasa. Only he had never seen his friend work himself into a coma like his sister did at least once a week. Maybe he did and Eren was just never around to see it.

"So," Armin prompted. "How's Levi been doing lately?" He dropped down onto the couch and leaned over the arm to fish through his bag.

"He's been okay," Eren replied as he wandered over to the kitchen. He pulled one of the cabinets open and took out a box of cinnamon Life. "He's been hiding all week, though. I've only ever seen him come out a couple of times. But he's been getting better. I guess he's just not used to the apartment yet."

"Probably not. Cats are adaptable, but they still take a while to get adjusted to new surroundings. Or maybe he's just skittish."

"Maybe." Eren took out a clean bowl and filled it with cereal. After sleeping for almost ten hours, he was starving.

"They all have a personality of their own, you know?" Armin rambled on. "I've seen it myself. I've seen a whole plethora of different kinds come in at the vet's office. It's so fun, getting to meet them all, and seeing what they're like. It's really interesting, actually."

"That's cool," Eren mused. He glanced back at his friend as he poured soy milk over his cereal. It wasn't until then that he realized how rude he was being. "Oh! Crap, um... do you... do you want anything?"

"No, not really," Armin responded, glancing up from the textbook in his lap. "I already had breakfast before I came over."

"Okay." Eren nodded and turned back to the counter. He wasn't sure whether of not Armin was telling the truth. But he knew well enough that Armin was never one to make a burden of himself. His situation was much different from Eren's. Sure, he didn't exactly have thousands of dollars at his disposal, but he wasn't trying to scrape out a life all on his own, either. He had his grandpa and the old family bookstore he ran back home, the one he used to work in before he went off to college. He had savings that he could use. He knew well enough that neither of Eren's parents were around to provide for him anymore, and he had to hang on to every dime he had. That didn't mean Eren couldn't do something so trifling as giving his friend a snack when he came over, though. But he didn't bring it up. He just crossed over into the living room and curled up in the opposite corner of the couch, holding his cereal in his lap.

"So, how did the calc test go?" Armin asked.

"Great, actually," Eren answered through a spoonful of Life. "I studied for days and wanted to rip my head off by the end of it, but I checked my grades last night. I scored a B."

A smile lit up on Armin's face. "Wow. That's fantastic, Eren! I told you, you can do it. You just needed to study harder."

"What did you get?"

Armin's face flushed a faint shade of pink and he dropped his eyes shamefully to the floor. "A-an A. I got an A."

Eren rolled his eyes. "Don't you ever get bored of getting perfect grades all the time?"

"They're not perfect," Armin protested. "Remember in the third marking period last year? I missed all those days when I got sick and almost dropped to a C in organic chemistry. It was the worst!"

"Dude, I only passed my science prereq because I was getting Cs. You need to stop complaining."

"Alright, fine," Armin sighed. He glanced back down to the textbook in his lap. "So, I wanted to ask you if you could help me study for the quiz in history on Tuesday. I think I've got most of it down, but there are still a few things I can't remember."

"Oh," Eren mumbled. He hadn't even remembered that they had a quiz. "S-sure. Totally. It's your first class of the day on Tuesdays, right?"

"That's why I'm doing this now. I won't have time to study in the morning."

"You would be doing this even if you did."

"Yeah, you're right. I probably would."

Eren leaned over sideways to place his bowl on the floor next to the couch. "Okay. Where are we starting?"

"Well, I'm still having some trouble putting the events of the Spanish-American War in order. And I know the whole Philippines issue happened afterward, but I can't be sure to what extent the US was involved at that point."

Eren stared at him, the words flying straight over his head. "Um... okay. We'll start from the beginning of the war, then."

The two of them passed the time bent over the same textbook, Eren quizzing Armin and re-learning the facts for himself as he did. He picked up his bowl of cereal and ate a few spoonfuls every minute or so, not really caring when it started to grow soggy. He was more concerned about trying to re-memorize all the details that he'd forgotten than what his cereal tasted like.

"Alright, so Emilio Aguinaldo had been an ally to the US while they were taking the Philippines from Spain..."

"Yeah, that's right."

"But then the US didn't give them their independence, and he switched sides and became the leader of the rebellion against US occupation. Right?"

"Uh-huh. And what about Puerto Rico?"

"Puerto Rico. Um... well, I'm pretty sure the Insular Cases applied to them too, so the US kept them on as a territory but didn't-"

Eren looked up from the textbook. Armin was looking at something on the floor, his eyes wide. "What is it?"

"Um, Eren... your cereal..."

_My cereal?_ Eren looked down at the bowl that he had left on the floor. Why would Armin be staring at his cereal?

Because Levi had his face in it, that was why.

"L-Levi!" Eren cried out. He scrambled out of his crosslegged position on the couch and swung his feet over onto the floor. Levi looked up at the sudden noise, then his eyes flew open and he skittered out of the room. Eren looked down at his ruined cereal and sighed.

"He does this all the time," he grumbled, crouching down to pick the bowl up off the floor. "I don't know why. I leave cat food out for him, but he doesn't eat it. I'm not starving him or anything. He just never wants to eat what he's supposed to.."

Armin stared off in the direction that the cat had just disappeared to. "Well, most animals would rather eat human food than their own, if given the chance."

"I know. But I always try _not_ to give him the chance." Eren dumped out the remains of his cereal into the trash and dropped the bowl in the sink. "I don't want to get him sick or anything. But sometimes it seems like human food is all he ever wants to eat. I can't even tell you all the times that I have left a plate of something unattended for literally ten seconds and by the time I get back to it, he's gotten to it. I don't know how he does it."

Armin stifled a giggle. "He's a sneaky little bastard."

Eren scoffed. "You're telling me."

Armin stood up from the couch and stretched his arms over his head. "Ugh... my shoulders hurt. How long have we been studying for?" He turned to look at the microwave clock in the kitchen. It was almost eleven. "Whoa."

Eren glanced over at it as well. He smirked. "You think we've done enough for today?"

"Definitely," Armin replied, rubbing at his stiff, rubbery neck. His spine popped under his fingers, eliciting a startled gasp from him. "Hnn... I don't even know how I can stand upright anymore..." He walked around the side of the couch and towards the tiny hallway where the door of Mikasa's room was standing ajar.

Eren passed by him as he returned to the living room. "Where are you going?"

"I want to see Levi again," Armin said absently. "I haven't been over in ages, and the last time I was here you didn't have a cat. I just want to get a better look at him. He went over here when he ran off, right?"

Eren started and whirled around to face the hallway. "W-what? Don't tell me he's in Mikasa's room again!"

"Wait, he's not supposed to be in he-" Armin began, but he was cut off as Eren shoved him out of the way and dashed into Mikasa's room. Sure enough, Levi was on her bed again, just below the collection of pillows laid haphazardly next to the headboard. He looked up at Eren with half-closed eyes and kneaded contentedly at the bedspread.

"Goddammit, Levi," Eren groaned. He stepped into the room and dropped down onto the bed. He reached toward Levi to pick him up, and the cat dug his claws into the bedspread in response. Armin came in and helped his friend unhook the cat's claws one by one from the fabric. Ripping a few threads loose was basically unavoidable.

Eren wrapped one arm tightly around his cat and squished him against his chest, running his free hand dismally over the ripped threads in the bedspread. "You don't think she's going to notice this, do you?"

Armin shrugged. "I don't know. She might, but she probably won't be that mad about it."

"I hope not." Eren sighed and stood up, securely fastening his other arm around Levi before the cat had a chance to get cross with him for not holding him properly. "God, why the hell can't you ever behave yourself?"

"He's a stray, Eren. He's never had to behave himself before," Armin pointed out.

"I know, but I've told him a million times that he's not supposed to go into Mikasa's room, and he does it anyway!"

"He's a cat, Eren. Do you really think that he can understand anything you say?"

"I- I don't know," Eren stammered. He walked out of the room and collapsed onto the couch, letting Levi settle into his lap. "Sometimes I feel like he does. But I never really know. I'm pretty sure he just does it to piss me off."

Levi stood up and arched his back, then jumped off of Eren's legs and perched himself on the arm of the couch. Eren reached a hand over to try and scratch him behind the ears, but a quiet growl from the cat made him take it back.

Armin laughed quietly as he pulled Mikasa's door shut and went back to the living room. "Well, he's definitely a lively one."

"Believe me, lively doesn't even cut it," Eren said flatly. His best friend sat down next to him on the couch and balanced his elbows on his knees, leaning over to look at the cat on the other side. Levi looked pensively back, blinking once at the blonde visitor. "That's Armin," Eren told him. "You've seen him before. Remember?"

Levi cocked his head to the side, as if he'd actually been listening to what Eren had said. He jumped off the arm of the couch, stepped carelessly over his human's legs and approached his friend. Armin straightened up in response, his eyes turning an even brighter and more curious shade of blue than before. He tentatively extended his hand toward the cat, his fingers delicately bent to let him sniff at his knuckles. Levi stretched his head out toward Armin and twitched his tiny black nose, puffs of air ghosting across his fingers. He drew back after a second and fixed the blonde with a calm, level stare.

Armin shifted uncomfortably in place. "Okay. Um... does that mean he likes me, or..."

"I don't know," Eren replied. "You never really know with him."

"He doesn't seem threatened or anything," Armin mused, gazing intently at the cat in front of him. "You know him better than I do. Does he normally act like this? Should I try and pet him or something, or do you think he's going to try and bite me?"

Eren shrugged. "You can try, I guess. I can't promise you anything, though."

Armin hesitantly extended the fingers on the hand Levi had just examined. The cat watched, but didn't react. He let out a sigh of relief and slowly moved his fingertips over the cat's head, giving him a gentle rub on the back of his neck. Levi's eyes closed into slits.

"Well, he tolerates me, at least," Armin said.

A minute later, Levi began dodging Armin's hand. The human quickly took his hands away from the cat, and the feline got to his feet and jumped off the edge of the couch to scamper off elsewhere in the apartment. Eren glanced at the microwave clock again. "Hey, Armin, when does your shift at the vet start?"

"Around one. Why?"

"You should probably get going soon."

"Oh. Well... you want to go out for lunch? We could stop somewhere on the way there." Much like Eren, Armin was used to walking everywhere he had to go. That included the vet's office that was twenty-six blocks away from the campus.

A smile crossed Eren's face. "Sure," he said brightly. He glanced down at himself. He was still wearing the beaten-up old shirt and slouchy flannel pants that served as his pajamas. "I should probably get dressed first, though."

"Then go ahead. I'm not going anywhere."

With that, Eren got up from the couch and rushed back into his room. He kicked the door shut behind him, ripped his shirt off and threw it carelessly at the bed. He almost missed the quiet scuffle that followed the soft _flumph_ of his shirt hitting the bed. Eren spun around toward the noise, and there was Levi, splayed out on his bed with his claws digging panickedly into the comforter. His eyes had widened into steel blue marbles. They flickered up to fix on Eren, who flushed in surprise.

"Oh my god. I-I'm so sorry!" he stuttered, rushing over to the cat and kneeling down in front of him. "I didn't know you were in here. I didn't mean to... I am so, so sorry."

Levi's eyes narrowed back into their normal shape as apologies began spilling uncontrollably out of Eren's mouth.

"Did I scare you? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to."

He held a hand out to see if Levi would accept a quick scratch as repayment for his mistake. The cat made no move to attack him, so he took it as an invitation and rubbed him gently behind the ears. Levi seemed to loosen up at that, then drew back once he'd had enough of Eren's petting. Eren stood up and began digging feverishly through his drawers to try and find something to wear. Once he'd unearthed a pair of worn-in dark jeans and an 8-bit Yoshi shirt, he began tugging at the ties of his pajama pants. Armin was waiting on him. He had to be quick, and he'd already wasted considerable time making up for startling Levi.

Speak of the devil, he was still sitting on the bed, even after having a shirt thrown at him. His blue-mercury eyes stared impartially off into the distance. Or...

Or was he looking at Eren?

An involuntary shiver ran down Eren's spine. His cat was watching him get dressed.

And that, for some reason, made him_ really_ uncomfortable.

_What am I getting so worked up about?_ he thought to himself as he let his pants drop to the floor and kicked them away. _Levi is a _cat_. He doesn't even wear clothes._

Still, Eren felt a more pressing need to put some clothes on than usual.

Once he'd gotten dressed, Eren yanked a random sweatshirt out of his closet, along with a knitted beanie, and pulled them on as he dashed back out into the apartment. His sneakers were waiting for him by the door. So was Armin.

"Ready," Eren said hurriedly as he crouched down to pull his shoes on. He snatched his keys, phone and wallet off of the kitchen counter and jammed them into his pockets.

"There's no rush," Armin said. "We've got more than an hour. Where do you want to go?"

"Um... I'm not sure." Eren straightened back up and fixed his beanie over his ears. "Maybe that little sandwich place with those weird herbal fries-"

A loud, adamant _Meow!_ cut through the apartment before Eren could finish his sentence. Both students turned back from the door to see a streak of black racing up to the front of the apartment. It skittered to a stop next to the door and looked up at Eren with insistent blue-grey eyes.

"What do you want, Levi?" Eren asked. The cat ran over to the door, rubbed his side against it and meowed again.

"Yes, I'm going. I'll be back soon."

_Meow._

"Do you want to go out?"

_Meow._

"Levi, I can't do that."

_Meow._

"It's not safe! You might get hit by a car, or run into someone's dog or something!"

_Meooooow._

Eren sighed and rolled his eyes. "No, Levi. You aren't going outside."

"Actually, Eren," Armin piped up, "some people do let their cats outside every now and again."

"I know, but think about it," Eren tossed back. "He doesn't have a collar, and he still looks kind of like a stray. What if someone calls animal control and has him locked up somewhere? What if he gets lost and can't find his way back here?"

Armin knitted his eyebrows. "Um... then..."

"Wait. I've got an idea."

Eren ran back into his room before Armin could say anything more. He pulled his closet door open and grabbed one of the shoes scattered haphazardly over the floor. Eren made quick work of taking the shoelace out and went back to the front door, where Levi was still rubbing insistently against the drywall. He knelt down and looped the long, tattered string twice around the little cat's neck. He tied it into a tight knot and took care to tuck the loops back into the portion around the cat's neck so they wouldn't get caught on anything.

"There," he said proudly. "It's a collar... sort of."

"Well, at least no one will mistake him for a stray anymore," Armin said with a smirk.

Eren stood up and pulled up the zipper of his sweatshirt. "That was the idea. Now come on, let's go. I don't want you to be late because of me."

Armin pulled the door open and Levi wove between both their legs and dashed down the stairs ahead of them. Eren went after him and stopped at the front door where the cat was pacing around in sleek little circles. He knelt down next to him and looked into his bright, mercurial eyes.

"I want you to be back here before dark," he said firmly. "Okay?"

Levi stared back at him, his face unchanged. Eren wasn't sure if he understood him or not. But he felt as if he did. And he certainly hoped so. It would be kind of tragic if he lost his new cat less than a week after bringing him home.

Eren straightened up and pushed the door open. In a flash, Levi was down the front steps and running out into the front yard, his short little legs working at an unbelievable speed. Armin caught up and the two of them set out in the direction of the vet's office.

Levi would be fine on his own for a few hours. Eren was sure of it.

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><p>Eren stayed out after lunch with Armin. He hadn't been planning on going anywhere that day, but once he'd gotten out, he didn't really want to go back in anymore. So, after he parted ways with his friend at the vet's office, he decided to wander around town for a while. He walked through a few of the shops, but didn't buy anything. He didn't have the money. But they were still fun places to visit. The odd little things they sold were always different every time he came back to them. Especially Mr. Pixis's thrift store. He always had the strangest things on display there. And people bought them. Eren had no idea why, but the shop had been on that same busy street in the middle of town for as long as he could remember, so it was staying open somehow.<p>

He lingered there a little longer than usual. This was the shop where he had found Levi. And for some reason, he had taken a new liking to the it that he'd never had before. It felt nostalgic. Like he had fond memories bonded to it. Something like that.

By the time Eren finally checked the time again, it had passed five in the evening.

Mikasa was probably back from work already. He'd forgotten to let her know that he'd gone out for the day. Eren felt guilty for a minute, but it passed soon enough. She was probably asleep by then. Her boss always ran her ragged whenever she showed up at the diner for work. So, to make up for the accidental slip-up, he would bring home dinner. After a quick check of his wallet, he decided he had enough to pick a few things up from another of the little cafe-type places that were scattered all over amongst the shops. And he could always use his employee discount at the one where he worked.

He stopped by the cafe and ordered a few sandwiches and cartons of soup to bring home while trying to look as much like an inconspicuous customer as he could. Then he started home again, determined not to get sidetracked by anything else.

That had already happened at the thrift shop. But he didn't exactly regret the purchase he had made.

Eren slipped his free hand into his pocket and brushed his fingers over the tiny folded-up paper bag. He could feel the tiny woven ring concealed inside, and the tiny metallic box of the copper buckle that held it in its shape.

He wasn't sure whether or not Levi would like wearing a collar. But he was going to need one if he wanted to go and wander out on his own from time to time.

Besides, this was a nice one. A vintage. And he's gotten it for three dollars. That definitely wasn't a price that any regular pet store could boast about.

He'd told Levi to be back before dark, but he wasn't sure that he actually would. Knowing him, he probably wouldn't turn up again until the next day. Or the next week. Or never. Levi certainly seemed like the kind of cat who would disappear forever just to spite his owner.

_Maybe that's how he wound up in the streets in the first place_, Eren thought as he gradually made his way up the street.

Levi was waiting for him on the front porch when he got back.

The sun hadn't even gone down yet.

Eren made his way up the steps and set the bag of takeout food aside. "Hey, Levi," he said, kneeling down to the cat's level. "You're home early."

Levi looked inquisitively at him, as if he were confused. It took Eren a second to realize why.

_Home. I just referred to my apartment as home._

He extended a hand toward Levi, and the little black cat sniffed at it before rubbing his head against the human's fingertips. Eren rubbed the top of his head.

_I wonder if he thinks about it that way, too._

Eren stood up, gathered up the bag of food and opened the door. Levi slipped past his legs and ran up the stairs ahead of him. Eren couldn't help the smile that lit up on his face.

_Maybe he does._

With that, he walked in and pulled the door shut behind him.


	5. Chapter 5

**I have returned.**

**It's been too long between updates. I've been trying to add chapters on AT LEAST a weekly basis with this fic, but, sadly, my life was not having it. Last weekend was disgustingly busy and I spent three days with no access to my laptop or and internet connection, soooooo that didn't exactly work out. But I'm back now! And hopefully I'll be bale to write fast enough to get two updates in this week. Maybe more, depending on how much story I finish.**

**UPDATE: I fixed Erwin's description. I finally figured out the actual name for the image of him that I had in my head. The coloring is called flame point. I'd originally called it pale ginger. Stupid. :/**

**Shameless promotion time.**

**asking-appelia on tumblr is me. lord-ravioli is also me. Former is my author page, latter is my regular one. Neither have been very active lately, for obvious reasons. But I would still very much appreciate a follow. I am also tracking the tag "fic: the october story," just in case anyone cares enough to post something regarding this story. **

**Okay, we're done with the shameless tumblr plugs. Time for more story.**

* * *

><p>Mondays always sucked.<p>

Eren couldn't deny that. They always had, ever since he had first started going to school when he was five years old. Mondays were a curse to the human race. And now that he was in college and all but completely alone in the world, the first day of the week had only gotten that much worse. On Mondays, classes started at eight thirty. He had three. Then he had work afterwards. Barely even a minute of free time in between.

By the time he got home, he felt ready to collapse.

Eren dropped his textbook-laden backpack on the floor next to the end table and toppled over onto the couch. A long, gravelly sigh rushed out of his lungs. He was tired. He was so tired he barely even felt alive anymore. Eren had just enough energy to raise his head and turn it to the side and keep from smothering himself in the throw pillow his head had happened to land on. He took another deep breath. He felt fit to pass out right then and there and sleep for the next ten years. But he couldn't do that. He still had homework. Sure, it wouldn't be due for another day or two, but he had other classes to worry about. And if he didn't do it then, he would have even more to worry about.

He had no idea how Mikasa did it. If he could just barely even handle his life as it was, he couldn't even imagine what hers was like.

"Meow."

Eren shifted a little at the clear voice that rang through the apartment. He stared blankly out at the shut-off TV on the other side of the living room, unable to be bothered with getting up and looking around for the source of the noise.

It was kind of funny, though. Levi had never greeted him when he came home before.

"Meow!" the cat called out again. A minute later, a little black smudge scampered into the living room. A black stripe flickered across Eren's vision as Levi ran by, the end of his tail waving in front of his face. And then Levi was there, staring at Eren with his perceptive blue-grey eyes and his tiny black paws perched on the edge of the couch.

"Meow," he said affirmatively. Eren knew well enough what it probably meant.

_Feed me._

Eren stared straight back at the cat, incapable of responding. He couldn't get up. He didn't want to. Levi meowed at him again, his high, piercing chirrup even sharper than before.

"Not right now, Levi," Eren mumbled. "I just need a minute. I'll feed you soon, okay?"

"Meow."

"I said in a minute."

Levi flicked his ears in annoyance and stared fumingly at his human before he took his paws back and dropped down onto all fours again. Eren watched as the cat disappeared from view, leaving only the tip of his tail visible over the edge of the couch. _Maybe he got the message._

As soon as the words had crossed Eren's mind, there was a scuffling noise next to the couch and something solid and heavy landed on his back. Eren coughed weakly, whatever it was bearing down on his ribcage and compressing his lungs. The thing quickly reorganized itself and stood up on four little points, concentrating its weight and making matters either better or infinitely worse. Eren wasn't sure which it was. but he did know one thing. Levi was not taking no for an answer.

That didn't mean he'd be getting an easy yes, though.

Levi paced around in a tight little circle on the flat of Eren's back, chirping insistently. He still refused to get up. It would take a lot more than that to convince him to move anywhere. But that was something Levi was well aware of. The cat quickly moved on to other tactics, kneading his shirt, nipping at his ears, licking his hair and meowing directly into Eren's exposed ear in an effort to make the human move. It wasn't easy in the least. But when Levi started bringing his claws into the mix, things quickly turned around. Eren groaned and strained his eyes to look up at the cat still perched stubbornly on his back. He chirped once.

"Fine," Eren acquiesced. "I'll feed you. Just get off of me."

That seemed fair enough. Levi jumped off and landed noiselessly on the floor. Eren pushed himself upright and threw his legs over the side of the couch, landing much less gracefully than the cat had. Once he'd staggered to his feet, he made his way over to his room. Levi's food dish was in there. The only problem was that the cat still hadn't touched it since the day he had put it down. Eren had already had to throw out the stale serving he'd put down and replace it with a fresh one twice, since Levi seemed to find the food he was supposed to like completely abhorrent. Eren had figured that he would start eating it as soon as he got hungry enough. And at this rate, he should have been starving.

But, of course, Levi's food dish was completely full when he came in to check it.

Eren turned around and looked critically at the little black cat who had followed him into the room. "Seriously?" he asked.

Levi looked at him and cocked his head.

"Levi, you're a _cat_. This is _cat_ food. It's yours. You're supposed to like it."

The feline stared at him as if he'd just made a blatant racist comment.

"Do you just not get hungry? Why the hell don't you eat like a normal animal?"

Levi didn't answer. He just turned away, flicking his tail dismissively as he walked out of the room.

Eren sighed. He never had any idea what to do with that cat. He seemed to be getting stranger and stranger the longer he stayed. Not only had he refused to eat his food, but he'd also completely ignored the litter tray that had been put out for him. Eren knew that for a fact. He'd followed Armin's advice and ran through it with a litter scoop every night, but the tray was always empty. Eren had no idea why. But the cat had been living with him for a week, and the apartment hadn't started to smell yet. So if Levi wasn't using his litter, Eren couldn't even imagine where in the apartment he actually _was_ using as a bathroom.

"Picky bastard..." Eren muttered as he flicked the light off and pulled his door closed behind him. Levi had disappeared somewhere in the apartment, hopefully not Mikasa's room. Eren couldn't seem to keep him out of there, despite the fact that his sister had made it a rule that the cat was not allowed to be anywhere that she might have to come into contact with him.

She still wasn't happy that Eren had brought him home.

Eren glanced at the microwave clock as he passed by the kitchen. It was just past five-thirty. Mikasa would be home soon. And, knowing her, she would be even more tired than he was. Her Monday schedule was hardly any different from his, and her boss at the diner didn't seem to understand that she was a waitress and not his personal slave. She might be bringing something home with her for dinner. But then again, she might not. And if she wasn't, then there was no way in hell that she would have enough energy to cook something. So, with more or less half an hour to spare before she got home, Eren decided to take care of things in advance.

Eren rarely ever knew what was in the fridge when he decided to pitch in. Mikasa was usually the one who took care of food matters and did most of the grocery shopping. A quick sweep of the fridge yielded up another microwave-steaming bag of rice, a bag of frozen peas and a tray of ground beef that Eren hadn't even known that his sister had bought. He dragged a cast-iron skillet out from one of the cabinets under the counter, set it up on the stove, and threw everything in along with some soy sauce and spices. There really wasn't much that he knew how to cook. But the few things that he did usually tasted pretty good. And he was relatively sure that Mikasa wouldn't be rejecting anything that she didn't have to make herself by the time she came home.

Levi jumped up onto the counter and watched Eren while he cooked. The human didn't make any effort to move him. He knew enough at that point that trying would be useless. The feline had proven himself to be weirdly strong-willed. Eren had known ever since the first day with him that he was more intelligent than the average cat. Yet he never seemed to learn from his experiences when Eren pushed him off the counter, or ignored his insistent meowing, or scolded him for clawing and biting his hands, or locked him out of Mikasa's room. It wasn't because Levi didn't know what he was doing. Eren was fairly sure that the cat did it out of spite.

This time wasn't any different.

Levi knew well enough not to go trying to touch the people food while the stovetop was still hot. But the second Eren turned it off, the meowing started up again.

Eren looked exasperatedly at the cat. "No, Levi. This is for people."

"Meow."

"I said no."

Levi stretched a skinny, graceful foreleg out and tried to snatch up some of the meat with his claws. Eren quickly whisked the skillet away. "Levi!"

"Meow!"

"You have your own food! I already told you, this isn't for you!"

Levi angrily lashed his tail and flattened his ears. His eyes narrowed into slits and stared challengingly at Eren. Eren stared straight back. The two of them stood there for what must have been an eternity, only breaking the stare-down once. That was when Eren looked at the microwave clock and realized that Mikasa would be home in less than ten minutes. Then he went straight back to glaring at Levi. He kept it up as he slowly backed up toward one of the cabinets. He reached up to ease it open and pulled out a small ceramic bowl.

Levi blinked. "Meow?" he asked inquisitively.

"Okay," Eren said submissively. "Just a little bit. And don't let Mikasa catch you."

The second the words were out of Eren's mouth, the cat leaped off the counter and began winding around his legs in feverish circles, looking up at him, chirping and trilling like Eren had never heard him do before.

_It's weird,_ he thought as he scraped out a tiny portion of the rice concoction. _It almost sounds like he's happy._

Eren carried the little bowl back to his room and set it down next to Levi's food dish. The cat came rushing in after him. He bolted toward the food like a furry black rocket and attacked it, demolishing half the dish in a matter of seconds. There was a click out in the apartment, and the front door squeaked open on its outdated hinges.

"Eren, I'm home! You there?" Mikasa's voice called out from the living room.

"Yep! Be right there!" Eren shouted back. He stood up and turned towards the door, standing ajar with white light from the hallway streaming in. He took a step toward it, but decided he wanted to glance back at Levi one last time before he headed out. He'd never seen the little cat so happy. Something about it warmed his heart, although he wasn't sure why. He was just a cat. Eren had never cared all that much about any animal before.

Levi was scrunched up on the floor, his slender little legs tucked under him and his face buried in his bowl. He was lapping noisily at the food, and there was another sound coming from him that was just barely audible, almost drowned out by the noise of his frantic eating but not quite. It was a soft, steady rumble, like the idling motor of a car.

_He's purring?_

Eren felt an odd twinge in his heart. Levi picked his face up from the bowl for a moment to twist around and look up at him, his bright pink tongue darting out to swipe a speck of beef off of his nose. He gazed up at Eren, his eyes narrowed and content.

_When was the last time I heard him purr like that?_ Eren wondered.

"Eren, did you make this?" Mikasa had gotten to the kitchen. She sounded relieved.

"Y-yeah, I did," Eren replied. "Hold on a sec. I'll be right there."

Upon hearing his words, Levi went back to his food. Eren turned away and hurried out into the apartment, a feeling like the embers of a campfire warming in his heart.

* * *

><p>Eren had no idea what time it was.<p>

But Levi was awake anyway.

The first thing he felt was the little pinpoints of pressure that crept up alongside him, pressing the blankets into the mattress and stretching it tight over his form. That was usually what woke him up. But still, he ignored him. For some reason, he thought that if he didn't give the cat a response he would give up and go away.

But, of course, Levi never gave up. So that led on to the next phase; clawing Eren's hair. It was something he could sit through. He could always fix it in the morning.

It was when he started biting Eren's ear that he finally got pissed off enough to bother opening his eyes.

"Levi, stop," Eren muttered, swiping blindly around next to the pillow to shove Levi away. There was no Levi to shove, though. He had moved out of the way the second he realized that his human was awake. Eren took his hand back and buried it under his pillow after a few short seconds of sleep-logged flailing. That was Levi's cue to dive back in and start biting again.

"Levi!" Eren snapped at him again, his voice sharper this time. He rolled over onto his back and looked blankly out into the semi-darkness. A pair of glowing silver-blue eyes stared back.

"Meow," Levi softly chirped. He was quieter than usual. Almost as if he were whispering.

"I'm trying to sleep," Eren grumbled, keeping his voice low. "I know cats are nocturnal or whatever, but humans aren't. Can you just leave me alone for like... another three hours?"

"Meooooow."

Eren sighed defeatedly and fixed the cat with a numb stare. "Fine. What do you want?"

Levi blinked and didn't respond. It was like he didn't feel he needed to.

_You already know what I want._

Eren couldn't argue with the Levi-voice in his head. He was right.

With another heavy, tired sigh, Eren crawled out from under the covers and dragged his legs over the edge of the bed. He winced as the cold, smooth floor struck his bare feet. He leaned over the edge and his hand fumbled blindly around on the bedside table, looking for the switch on his lamp. The light nearly blinded him when it first turned on, but his eyes adjusted eventually. Eren staggered to his feet and made his way out into the hallway, Levi following persistently along.

The kitchen was just as dark as his bedroom, if not darker. The light from the microwave clock and the moonlight seeping in through the wide living room window coated the apartment in a soft, bluish-white glow. It was just enough for Eren to find his way to the fridge. He pulled the door open, and the light inside cast the room in an even brighter glow.

"Okay," he said quietly as Levi trotted up behind him. "What's in here that I can give you?"

It would have surprised him a week earlier. But after Levi had begged him to three days earlier, giving the cat table scraps instead of his regular food was nothing out of the ordinary anymore. Eren still left the dish of dry food out. It was only for display, though. Levi never touched it. He never had, and Eren was fairly sure that he never would. He just had to keep Mikasa in the dark as to what he was doing to feed Levi. The cat didn't eat very much as it was. She probably wouldn't notice if half a cup of food went missing from the fridge once or twice a day.

Levi slipped past Eren's legs and jumped up into the fridge, scaling the shelves until he was halfway up. He sniffed around for a while, then began nipping at the edge of takeout container. Eren reached in and tugged it out for him. The cat jumped off the shelf and landed gracefully on the floor as the fridge door swung shut. Eren carefully undid the folds at the top, took a small bowl out of the cabinet, and pushed out a few pieces of cold teriyaki shrimp. He set the bowl down on the floor, fixed the takeout box back up and stuffed it silently back into the fridge. Levi looked up at him for a second, eyes glaring as if he were offended that Eren didn't heat it up for him. But the human was too tired to care. So he scrunched over the bowl and began picking at the shrimp.

He'd done the same thing the first night that Eren had given him people food. Eren guessed that he had still been starving himself, even after he was given constant access to food. It was a wonder that he hadn't starved himself back to his stray status. Eren figured that he had been keeping himself alive somehow. The cat knew how to open doors. It wouldn't surprise him if he knew how to open the fridge too.

The bowl of shrimp was empty a few short minutes later. Levi picked his head up and swiped his little pink tongue over his nose. He looked up at Eren with his wide silver-blue eyes, once again waiting for him to take a hint. He did quickly enough. Eren picked up the bowl and lowered it into the sink, careful not to let it clatter too loudly on the aluminum basin. Levi strutted over to him and circled around his legs. Eren looked down, wondering what the cat wanted next.

"I already gave you food," he whispered harshly. "You're not getting any more. You have to wait until tomorrow."

Much to Eren's surprise, Levi drew in close to him and nuzzled his head against his leg.

"Wha- huh?"

Eren stared down at the little black shadow cast against the pale tile floor of the kitchen. His bright eyes flashed up at him for a second, then, just like that, he was gone. Levi dashed out of the kitchen and disappeared into the dim yellowish glow leaking through his bedroom door. That quick little thank-you nuzzle was all he would be getting.

But it was still something when Eren hadn't been expecting to get anything at all.

* * *

><p>Armin called on Friday afternoon.<p>

Eren was working at the cafe when his cell phone started to buzz in his pocket. Immediately he ran back into the kitchen and asked one of the others if he could cover for him. Jean was the only one available. So Eren had to settle for conveying an invitation to the movies that weekend to Mikasa in exchange for a few minutes away from the counter. He wouldn't be giving it to her. Jean didn't have to know. She probably would have turned him down anyway. It grossed him out a bit, how desperate he was to get with his sister. But, sadly, bartering over Mikasa was the only way he could ever get him to do anything. He hated Eren's guts too much to help him out in exchange for anything else.

Eren took his phone out of his pocket and saw Armin's smiling face with a Sharpied-on cat nose and whiskers lighting up on the screen. He sighed and pressed the call button.

"Hey. What is it, Armin?"

"Hi, Eren!" his best friend's bright, cheery voice answered on the other end. "How's it going?"

"I'm at work," Eren deadpanned. "You know that, Armin. Why are you calling me?"

"There was something I wanted to tell you. I thought you went on break right around now."

Eren pulled the phone away from his ear and glanced at the clock reading at the top. "Not for another twenty minutes. But I guess I could take it a little early."

"Okay. Good," Armin said.

"So what was it that you wanted to tell me?"

"Well... you know how you found Levi around that thrift store... what was it, two weeks ago?"

"Yeah, almost."

"Well..." The line went quiet for a second. "Hm... I don't know if I want to spoil the surprise for you or not."

"Surprise?" Eren blurted out. "W-what surprise? Armin, what are you talking about?"

"Nothing!" Armin quickly replied. "I was just thinking... It's probably not a good idea to try and keep it a secret if we want things to work out..."

"If we want what to work out?" The more Armin talked, the more confusing everything was. Eren wasn't sure if his friend even knew where he was going with this conversation anymore.

And then, just like that...

"Eren, I found a cat."

Eren's brain went blank. Did he just hear that correctly? Was his phone screwing up and scrambling his calls?

_Armin has a cat?!_

He pulled his phone away from his ear and stared at it, as if he expected it to be malfunctioning. The screen looked exactly the same as it had when he'd started the call. The little white timer was still ticking away. Seconds into minutes, one minute into two...

"Hello?" Armin's muted voice streamed out of the speaker. "Eren? Hello?"

Eren started and quickly pressed the phone back to his ear. "Y-yeah, I'm still here. Sorry. I just... You have a cat?"

White noise flooded the line as Armin let out a long sigh into his phone. "Yeah."

"How? Since when?"

"Since last night, actually," he replied. There was some static and scuffling on the other end of the line. "I was in between classes and I saw him sitting on the front steps outside the Sina dorms. I didn't think much of it the first time, but then I passed by him again on my way to lunch, and he was in the same place. Then I went by Sina again, right before anatomy, and he was still there, but I still..."

"I get it. He was sitting outside Sina all day. Get on with it."

"Okay, okay, I'm getting to it! Calm down. So the last time I saw him was right after my last class. I didn't have anything else to do, so I decided to go over to him. He seemed friendly enough, and he let me touch him, but I didn't know if he belonged to anyone, since he really didn't seem like a stray or anything, so I decided I would just leave him there, and..."

"And?"

"He followed me home."

For the second time in that conversation, Eren was speechless. Armin had asked twice if he was still there before he finally remembered how to speak.

"That is _really_ weird."

"I know it is. But it happened, and... here we are," Armin replied.

"What does he look like?"

"Hold on a sec. He's right here, I just have to... Oh. Okay." More static fizzled on the other end. Eren had to wonder what exactly his best friend was doing over there. "He was sitting on the couch with me and just decided to jump off."

"He sounds friendly."

"He is," Armin said. "Really friendly, for a stray. So... as for what he looks like... I think he's some kind of mixed breed. He looks like pretty much any generic shorthaired cat, but he's got a flame point pattern. His coat is kind of a blonde-ginger color, if that makes any sense to you, and he has these rust-colored stripes, but you can only see them on his face and a little bit on his tail."

"Mhmm."

"He's pretty big, too. Almost, like... raccoon-size. And get this. He has blue eyes."  
>Eren blinked. "Is that normal for that kind of cat?"<p>

"Well... sort of. I mean, I've seen it before, but... I don't know. It's kind of hard to describe. It's like they're a different _kind_ of blue."

"A different kind?"

"Yeah. They're sort of... I don't know. I can't really think of a way to put it. I guess you'll just have to come over and see him for yourself."

Eren paused for a second to cover the microphone as a dish tray clattered past and was dumped gracelessly into the sink. "I'm kind of busy today. You know, work, then studying and stuff."

"I know. I was going to ask when you'd be free."

"Tomorrow will probably be okay," Eren said definitively. "Just don't come up at the crack of fucking dawn like you did last week."

"It was nine thirty, Eren."

He sighed and leaned back against the wall. "Armin, do you even know how my biological clock works?"

Armin sighed back. "Fine. How about you come over to my place, then? I have to work early, but I get off of at around three, so it'll probably an afternoon thing-"

"Great. So I can sleep until about two."

"Eren!"

"Okay, okay. We'll hang at your place tomorrow. You want Mikasa to come too?"

"Of course!" Armin replied enthusiastically. Then, the brightness fading from his voice, he added, "U-unless... er, she's busy or anything..."

"I'm pretty sure she will be. I'll let her know and see if she can work things out with Keith."

"Alright," Armin said. "Well... see you later, then."

"Later." Eren drew the phone back and slid his thumb over the screen to hang up.

"Oh. Eren, wait!"

He quickly pressed the phone back to his ear. "What is it?"

"I'm going to be leaving something in front of your door. It'll be in a PetSmart bag. I want you to take it into your apartment and... I don't know. Leave it out in the living room or something. Just make sure Levi smells it."

"Th-that Levi... what?" Eren stammered. Armin hung up before he got an answer.

* * *

><p>The rest of the day went by in a pretty boring fashion. Eren finished work, grabbed a few of the day's leftover bagels to bring home since the cafe prided itself in always having the freshest baked goods available, walked back to the house by grey, fading sunlight and unlocked the front door right around the time that the sky finally went dark. There was a little white plastic bag sitting at the top of the upgoing stairs with its handles twisted up into tight, meticulous knots, just as Armin had said. Eren picked it up and headed inside.<p>

Levi was off somewhere in the apartment when he walked in. And, as usual, he didn't come up to say hello. After spending a nearly two weeks with the cat, Eren had learned that when he had settled down anywhere, there was no hope of getting him to move.

However, when Eren put the PetSmart bag down on the kitchen counter and started undoing tight knots in the handles, Levi magically appeared in the kitchen and started winding around his legs.

"Whoa!" Eren exclaimed, startled to the point of nearly tripping over the pacing little cat. He regained his balance and looked down at the feline. "Well, hello to you, too, Levi."

Levi looked up at Eren and blinked. "Meow?"

Eren turned back to the PetSmart bag, which was now lying half-open on the kitchen counter. He went about picking the rest of the knots out of the handles. Finally he gave up and resorted to ripping the plastic open. There was a small towel resting inside, about the size of a dishrag. Eren noticed a thin layer of pale hair stuck in the terrycloth fibers. Following Armin's advice, Eren dodged around Levi, knelt down and laid the folded towel out on the kitchen floor between the two of them.

At first, Levi seemed unimpressed. He stared down at the towel for a second, as if he expected something live to pop out of it. Then he turned his mercurial eyes up to Eren, his ears turned back in annoyance. _This is it?_ he seemed to be saying.

Eren just sat still and waited. Eventually Levi gave up on trying to stare him down and turned his attention back to the towel. He leaned down over the folded lump of cloth, carefully examining it, maybe trying to determine exactly what color that layer of hair stuck in the terry was supposed to be. He hovered his tiny black nose over the fabric and sniffed delicately at it.

"Armin's got a cat now," Eren explained gently. "I guess he was letting him use that as a blanket or something. And... That's what he smells like." He finished off with a shrug.

Levi continued staring at the towel for a while longer, sniffing it again and again. Eren thought he saw his eyes widen a little. He twitched his nose at the towel one last time, then looked up at Eren and blinked in what he could only assume was confusion.

"That's Armin's cat," he said again. "He wanted you to get his scent. I don't know why. Maybe he thinks you'll be best friends of something."

Levi stared at Eren for a second, then turned his ears back and jumped to his feet, turning to bolt around the counter and out of the kitchen. _Yeah, right. Like that's ever going to happen._

Eren sighed, picked the hairy towel up and stuffed it back into the PetSmart bag. Levi didn't really seem all that interested in meeting other cats. When he stood up, he saw that Levi was standing by the front door, bumping his head against it and pacing around in tight, anxious circles.

"You want to go outside?" Eren asked.

Levi rose up on his hind legs and leaned his paws against the door, shooting an insistent meow in Eren's direction. The human left the towel on the counter and moved to open the door for the twitchy black cat. Then he remembered.

"Hold on a second, Levi," he said. "There's something I wanted to give you."

The cat took his paws away from the door and settled back down on all fours. He fixed Eren with his inquisitive blue-grey eyes.

Eren turned away and dashed back to his room. He knew he'd left it lying around somewhere. He didn't know why he hadn't given it to him sooner. Maybe he'd just forgotten. Or maybe it was because Levi hadn't insisted on going out since Saturday, and he hadn't really had any reason to. But he still wished he'd thought of it sooner. Now he had no clue where he'd left it. He didn't want to keep Levi waiting. Eventually, after sifting through the thick distribution of clutter on his dresser, he dug up the rumpled paper bag that he had taken home a week earlier. He quickly snatched it up and ran back to the front door. Levi was still there, sitting straight up and waiting patiently for his human to come back and give him whatever present he'd been so excited about a minute ago. Eren knelt down in front of the little cat, slipped his hand into the paper bag and took out a woven collar with a little copper clasp at the front.

"I got this for you a while ago," he said. "I don't know why I waited until now to give it to you, but... I think it's time that I finally do."

Levi curiously eyed the small loop of nylon sitting in Eren's hands. It was uncommonly pretty for a pet collar. The thin threads were mixed up in a carefully chosen array of forest greens, navy blues and splashes of white, woven into an intricate little tribal pattern that looked almost like it was made up of tiny blue and white wings. The colors were a little faded, and the copper pieces were a bit tarnished, but it was in surprisingly good condition for the price Eren had gotten it for. Levi sniffed it and sneezed at the usual thrift-store-mothball smell.

Eren laughed. "Do you like it?"

Levi didn't reply. But he still didn't protest when Eren reached forward and clipped the collar around his neck.

"There," Eren said, leaning back on his heels and surveying his work. "Now they'll know you're not a stray anymore."

Levi looked up at him and flicked his tail. _That's nice. Can I go now?_

Eren stood up and opened the door for Levi. The cat raced out ahead of him and dashed down the stairs to the outside entrance. Eren went out after him and twisted the doorknob. He pushed it open and Levi slipped through. The sky outside was already a deep twilight blue. Eren looked down at the weathered front porch to see that Levi was still standing there, looking back at the thin strip of light seeping through the front door.

"Try to come back before too long," Eren said, his voice soft with concern. "Okay?"

Levi blinked at him once, as if to say he understood. Then he turned away and disappeared into the night.

* * *

><p>Eren slept through all of Saturday morning.<p>

By the time he finally woke up, it was almost noon. As usual, Mikasa had already left for work. He'd told her about Armin's suggestion the night before, but, as he'd expected, she already had hours scheduled for almost the entire day. He had nowhere to go until the afternoon. So he didn't really feel any need to drag himself out of bed. He needed the sleep, anyway.

He'd stayed up almost all night.

He had told Levi to come back before too long. He hadn't known what he was thinking. First of all, the stupid cat never did as he was told. Eren knew that better than anyone else. Aside from that, it was already dark by the time he finally asked to go outside. He shouldn't have let him out in the first place. But for some reason, he did. He thought Levi needed a little taste of freedom every now and again. It could only be expected from a former stray.

The cat hadn't come back until almost three in the morning. Eren probably could have gone to bed at a reasonable time and let him stay outside all night. But he couldn't bring himself to leave him out in the cold. So he'd waited around, sneaking outside to check the front porch every now and again, and eventually Levi had shown up. Eren was delirious with sleep deprivation by the time he did, but he could have sworn that the cat looked surprised to see him. He'd decided to sleep on the end of Eren's bed that night. Eren thought very seriously about shoving him off, just in case he decided to get up and walk all over him at some ungodly hour in the morning. But he was too tired to care at that point. He'd just passed out with Levi resting next to his feet.

For once, Levi didn't wake him up.

Things were pretty slow after that. Eren dragged himself out of bed and wandered out into the kitchen to find Levi sitting on the couch and his copy of _Les Miserables_ for European lit lying open on the couch. He had been reading it while he waited for Levi the night before, verging on passing out more than once. He didn't remember leaving it out, though. He picked it up, placed it on the endtable and started making breakfast (re: lunch) for himself, making sure to set aside a little extra portion for Levi. The rest of the time was spent just lazing around, waiting for the sound of the door outside creaking open and Armin's quick footsteps traveling down to his half of the split-level.

Once three-thirty rolled around, Eren picked Levi up and headed downstairs.

He kept his cat pressed securely against his chest as he knocked on the varnished maple door that was a copy of his own. He twisted his neck to glance down at Levi, who didn't seem all that uneasy for a cat who was being forcibly taken from his habitat for the first time. If anything, he seemed pretty calm. He might have been more curious to know where they were going than nervous about being taken from Eren's apartment against his will.

"We're going to Armin's," Eren told him gently. Levi looked up at the sound of his voice and blinked placidly at him. "He has a cat now, remember?" he went on. "I want you to be nice to him. Just for today. Then you can do whatever you want once we go back upstairs. I'll be there the whole time, so don't be nervous. Okay?"

Levi twitched his ears back. Eren sighed and looked back at the still-unopened door. If he wasn't mistaken, Levi seemed annoyed with him. He wasn't sure why that would be, though he thought it might have something to do with the childish way he talked to him. The idea didn't make much sense to him, for what it was worth. Everyone talked to their pets that way. In fact, some people didn't talk to their pets at all. He spoke to Levi a lot, probably more than any normal person would. But, despite all the strangeness, he never felt weird doing it. Something told him Levi liked listening to him. Although he couldn't begin to imagine why.

No one answered for a while, and Eren knocked on the door again. He heard a muffled rustling coming from the other side. A second later, the door clicked open, and there was Armin, He was still wearing the pale grey cable-knit sweater and white button-down that he'd worn for his hours in the vet office that morning. And, Eren noticed, they were covered in pale, gingery hair.

"Hi, Eren," Armin said, greeting his friend with a smile. "No Mikasa, huh?"

"Nope," Eren replied, shaking his head. "Um... that's a lot of hair you've got going on, there."

"Oh. This?" Armin looked down at his sweater and let out a shy, embarrassed laugh. "I was just putting the cat into my room before you brought Levi over."

"Oh." Eren adjusted his hold on Levi, who had started to squirm, and stepped into his friend's apartment. "So, are we supposed to lock them in there together, or..."

"What? No." Armin looked surprised. He pushed the door shut behind Eren. "They'd probably kill each other if we tried that."

"Then why is your cat in your room? I thought they were supposed to be meeting each other."

"They are. But you can't just throw two cats together right away and expect them to get along. It doesn't work like that."

Levi started to struggle in Eren's arms, and he set him down to let him scamper around Armin's apartment. "So... how is it going to work?"

"Well, we've already gotten started," he said factually, nodding towards Levi. "The first part is always getting the cat used to the other's surroundings. He's also getting accustomed to his scent."

Meanwhile, Levi was poking around, sniffing at the sparse secondhand furniture and broken-in area rug that designated one half of the space as the living room. Armin's apartment was just slightly smaller than the one upstairs that Eren shared with Mikasa. Just like theirs, it had only one bathroom and no separation between rooms in the central part of the apartment. There was a kitchenette in one corner that was installed when the original house had been divided into apartments, but other than that, the only thing that set the areas apart were the types of furniture, namely the old cafe table in one corner and the deep orange 1970s couch facing the opposite wall that had previously been in the basement of Armin's house.

Eren watched his cat explore, feeling amused. "And what happens after that?"

"Well, he's going to be doing this for a while longer, probably. Once he's gotten used to my place, we'll try to move him over to my room. He'll be able to hear and smell my cat through the door. And if they seem okay with each other, then we can introduce them. But it has to go that way, and slowly. If we try to push them, they'll just end up fighting."

Eren nodded. "Okay." He moved over to the couch, and Levi promptly followed him and settled underneath it. He glanced down at his cat, then back at his friend. "So... what do you want to do while he runs around?"

"I don't really know," Armin said with a small shrug. "I could put in a movie or something. I took a few out from the library. What sounds good to you?"

One bag of microwaved popcorn and back-and-forth argument later, Armin curled up on the couch and balanced a loaded bowl on the cushions while Eren stuck the copy of _Carrie_ that he dug up from the deepest recesses of Armin's bookcase into the DVD player. Armin had told him over and over that he had no idea how it had gotten there, it had probably gotten mixed up with his own movie collection when he took the entertainment system out of his old basement to move it into the new one, and a million other excuses to convince Eren to choose something else. But his friend had already decided once he caught sight of the blood-stained cover, and proceeded to argue that it was a classic, in the spirit of the season, and Armin was being culturally deprived by not having seen it even once. They finally agreed that they would watch it, but Eren had to hold the popcorn and Armin was allowed to cling to him if he got scared.

The movie itself wasn't anywhere near as bad as Armin had thought it would be. Mainly because they had only gotten thirty minutes into the story when Levi jumped up onto the couch and distracted everyone.

"Hey. Eren, look," Armin said, glancing over from his spot squished uncomfortably close to his best friend.

Eren did the same and saw his cat perched comfortably on the arm of the couch, looking curiously at the screen. "Wow. That was fast." He wriggled his arm out of Armin's death grip and reached out to usher the little black cat toward them. Levi resisted, but not enough to keep Eren from sweeping him into his lap. "Now what, cat whisperer?"

Armin snatched up the remote and hit pause. "Okay," he said, scooting around to face them. "Now we just stick him in front of my door and see how things go from there."

"Alright. Sounds pretty self-explanatory." Eren wound his arms around Levi and huddled him against his chest as he got up from the couch and started toward Armin's room. His friend followed close behind, keeping an eye on the little black furball as Eren knelt down by the door and lowered him down onto the floor. Levi tried to walk away, but Armin joined them soon enough, blocking his exit. The cat didn't seem too alarmed by the situation, and simply stayed where he was, pacing around in circles for a while and looking back and forth between the two humans. Eventually it sank in that he wasn't going anywhere, and he resigned himself to sniffing at the crack underneath Armin's bedroom door.

The moment he did, things started getting strange.

Eren thought he saw Levi's eyes widen again, just like they had when he had smelled the dishtowel the day before. He stepped back from the door, staring at it as if he expected it to fly open in his face any second. He inched closer and sniffed at the crack again, then stood back, blinked a few times and twitched his ears in confusion. Then started the cycle all over again.

"That's odd," Armin said.

"What is?" Eren asked.

"He's not making any kind of noise."

"Should he be? Is that a bad sign or anything?"

"No. Well, I don't think so, anyway. I've never seen anything like this before. Normally once one cat smells that the other is there, they start meowing at each other, or growling, or hissing or... I don't know. Something. And he's just... there."

Eren's gaze bounced back and forth between his friend and his cat. "Is your cat quiet?"

"No. No, he's definitely not. He likes to talk a lot, and I'm surprised he's not doing anything yet."

"Maybe he's asleep or something."

"He was awake when I put him in there. He might be, but I really don't know."

Things were quiet for a while longer. "So... have you given him a name yet?"

"The cat?"

"No, the hamster. Of course I mean the cat. Does he have a name yet?"

"Yes, actually. I came up with it this morning. It's-"

At that moment, Levi leaned in towards the crack under the door and let out a small, tentative "Mew."

Armin seemed to wind up a little bit more, his eyes getting bluer with excitement. "Okay. They're not reacting aggressively, so... maybe if we open the door..."

"I thought you said it was a bad idea to try and push them together."

"It is. But this seems a little... different this time."

Eren glanced at the door. "Well, what's the worst that could happen?"

"They see each other and immediately attack," Armin said factually. "But, even if that happens, we'll be here to break it up. Then we can try again later, if they're still into it."

"Alright," Eren said. The two of them stood up, and Levi glanced over his shoulder to watch. The cat stepped back from the door, and Eren moved behind him to keep him from trying to escape. Armin reached forward and tightened his fingers around the tarnished brass.

"Okay," he said tentatively. "Here goes..."

The latch clicked, and the door creaked open. Standing directly behind it was probably one of the biggest cats that Eren had ever seen.

Armin hadn't been exaggerating when he said his new cat was almost the size of a raccoon. His coat was even paler than he had been expecting, a faint creamy color that Eren might have called blonde if it were on a human. He had the smattering of stripes in the exact places that Armin had described, including few oddly placed dark streaks on his face that looked sort of like eyebrows, if he stared at them long enough. And his eyes... That blue color...

Those weren't normal cat's eyes. Eren knew it the second he saw them.

And apparently Levi did too.

The cat's eyes were definitely wider now. They stood out against his raven fur like a pair of round, glassy steel-blue marbles. Eren thought he saw his mouth drop open, just the slightest bit. The expression on his face was almost human. It looked like he was surprised. Or shocked. Shocked was probably a more appropriate word. But whatever it was that Levi was feeling, it was gone from his face a second later. Levi's ears swiveled back and flattened over his head. His eyes narrowed, his pupils dilating, and his tail lashed viciously back and forth. The fur running along his spine raised up into a spiky ridge as the stunned silence was slowly filled in by a low, menacing growl.

Armin started to tense up. "That's not good," he murmured.

Levi's mouth opened and he let out a sharp, icy hiss. And somehow, some way, Eren understood exactly what it meant.

_You._

The large blonde cat on the other side of the door hadn't made any moves. Eren watched him for a response, but he wasn't giving any. He just stood there patiently while Levi glared daggers at him and unsheathed his claws into the floor. The black cat's mouth dropped open in another hiss.

Then, just like that, Levi launched himself at the strange cat, fangs and claws bared and ready to rip him to shreds.

"Levi! Stop it!"

Eren quickly lunged forward and grabbed at the cat's slender body. He missed, but it was just enough to throw the raging feline off course. Levi landed on the floor, a solid six inches between him and the other cat, who had swiftly moved aside and jumped up to the safety of Armin's bed. His clear, un-feline blue eyes watched attentively as Eren wrestled with the snarling, spitting furball that had been Levi just a second earlier, trying to hold him still as he removed him from the room. Levi screeched and struggled, digging his claws into Eren's flannelled arms and biting at his fingers in his effort to get free. Eren winced in pain, but refused to let go until he heard the bedroom door slam shut again. He staggered away and collapsed onto the couch. Levi sprang out of his arms and raced back to the door, only to see that Armin was leaning back against it, looking startled and holding it securely shut. The cat pounced at the doorknob, then, failing to get past Armin, began scratching at the door, yowling vehemently at the cat on the other side.

"W-what was that about?" Eren said bewilderedly.

"I don't know," Armin answered, still keeping an eye on Levi. "I thought it was going so well, and they just..."

"I know." Eren looked over the back of the couch at Levi as he gave up on trying to scratch the door open, shot one last livid hiss through the crack at the bottom and dashed off to hide somewhere else in the apartment.

"I've never seen an introduction turn around that quickly," Armin said, finally stepping away from the door.

"Yeah," Eren murmured. "Was it just me, or was it almost like... like they knew each other?"

"Like they knew each other?" his friend repeated, settling onto the couch next to him. "What makes you think that?"

Eren opened his mouth to reply, but quickly shut it again. How could he explain it?_ I can sometimes understand the things Levi says? I share a telepathic connection with my cat? I sometimes hear his voice in my head when he communicates?_

"N-nothing. It was nothing. Forget it."

"Okay," Armin said, looking wary. He glanced back at the door. Levi, thankfully, was still keeping his distance from it.

"So what's his name?" Eren asked absently.

"Hm?" Armin turned back to him, his eyes still wide with confusion.

"You said you gave your cat a name. What is it?"

"Oh." Armin glanced back at the door one last time before he could explain. "It's actually kind of weird, how I came up with it. He'd been staying here for a couple of days, and I was just having such a hard time trying to figure out a name for him. Then, last night, I had the weirdest dream. I met this guy, and... I'm not really sure how to explain this. He... he looked kind of like the cat. You know, the way he might look if he were a human. I was in my grandpa's bookstore, and I was wandering around and he sort of just... found me. We talked for a while, he told me his name, and then I woke up. The second I opened my eyes, the cat was right there. He was sitting right next to the pillow, like he was watching me, and waiting for me to wake up or something... I don't know. But that was when I decided that I would name him after the guy I saw in my dream."

Eren nodded, an odd sense of apprehension twisting up in his chest. "And what was his name?"

"Erwin. I named the cat Erwin."


	6. Chapter 6

**Hello. I come bearing more updates.**

**It's 11:00 at night and I just really wanted to get this one published, since I'm going to be going away for the next 9 days and I won't have any access to the internet. If I see anything interesting while adventuring, I might put some pictures or video or some form of media up on my tumblr, which is asking-appelia, if anyone is interested. I've done stupid tumblr plugs in literally every chapter of this story and so far they STILL haven't worked. But there's really nothing I can do about that. So i'll just keep waiting it out. **

**Also I am tracking the tag "fic: the october story" on tumblr. Just because, you know, I think this story deserves a tag, judging by the reception it's gotten.**

**I want to thank everybody who's keeping up with this story for following me and all the positive feedback I've gotten. i really didn't think this story was going to be one that people would go for as much as they did, but this ended up being one of the best instances of me being wrong that I have ever experienced. I guess Neko!Levi works his magic in more ways than one.**

**Wait, what? Never mind. Let's just keep reading the story.**

**I probably won't be finished until December, at this rate.**

* * *

><p>Eren woke up to the feeling of tiny pawprints trailing up his side at about four in the morning.<p>

His eyes flickered open. The room seemed a little brighter than usual. He wasn't normally awake when the stars were at their clearest. Eren shifted a little under the covers and craned his neck to look over his shoulder. There was a small black lump in the darkness right next to him on the pillows, looming over him like a ghost. Two small mirrors set into its indiscernible face flashed in the soft light. Eren sighed and rolled onto his side.

"Couldn't sleep, huh, Levi?" he asked the shadow.

The silver mirrors blinked out for a second, and Levi crouched down to Eren's level. His pupils were blown up into round, black pools, his normally slitted eyes now wide and softer than usual. Eren freed one hand from the blankets and hovered it cautiously in front of Levi's nose. The cat stared at it for a second, then bent his head forward and eagerly rubbed his head against the student's fingers.

"Hey. Is something wrong?" Eren asked softly. Levi didn't answer him. So he just worked his arm out of the blankets and cupped his hand around Levi's face, gently scratching the top of his head with his thumb. The cat closed his eyes and scrunched his legs up underneath himself, taking up his meatloaf-esque position on the unoccupied pillow next to his.

"Are you alright?" Eren asked again, even though he wasn't even sure why he did anymore. "You don't normally act like this." Not that he minded all that much. For the first time since he had been brought into Eren's apartment, Levi was showing him some kind of affection. But it didn't fit. He was never this nice. Something had to be wrong.

"Is this about Erwin?"

The cat's eyes flew open at the sound of the other's name. He blinked earnestly at Eren.

"What was all of that about, anyway?"

Levi lowered his head onto his paws and nuzzled it against Eren's hand again.

_I don't want to talk about this. Just shut your mouth and keep doing that_.

Eren was half-asleep, but he could have sworn that he heard Levi say those exact words.

"Maybe I should ask Armin about all of this. Once he gets to know Erwin better, I mean."

The tip of Levi's tail flicked in what Eren guessed was disapproval.

"Yeah, you're right. What am I saying? He's a_ cat,_ it's not like he can explain any of this to Armin anyway." Eren laughed softly at himself and rubbed between Levi's ears, then ran a hand down his back, fingers catching on the edge of his collar. "Stupid."

Levi stared at him for a second. All of the sharpness had gone out of his eyes and they were slowly drifting shut. A soft, steady vibration started up in the tiny cat's chest. Eren watched him, his brain still shrouded in a dreamy haze, but Levi seeming to be slipping under so much faster. He massaged his fingers in small, relaxing patterns on the top of the cat's small raven head. Soon enough, Levi was passed out on the pillow next to his.

Eren fell asleep to the sound of his purring.

* * *

><p>Levi was a little wary around Eren the next day. And the day after.<p>

More than a little, actually. In fact, he hardly ever saw him for more than a second at a time.

Eren wasn't sure why. The cat had been so sweet to him on Saturday night. Sunday morning. Whatever time of day it is when the clock isn't being read in PM anymore but the sun hasn't come up yet and all the sane people in the world are asleep. But, after thinking about it long enough, he figured that he shouldn't be surprised. After all, he had sort of dragged him into a strange apartment and tried to set him up with a cat who he, apparently, already knew and hated very much.

Sunday was quiet and relatively boring. Eren and Mikasa both went into work, not many people showed up at the cafe, the both of them went to visit Armin for the night and got to spend a little more time with Erwin. He came back to his apartment with blonde-ginger hair all over his clothes. Levi noticed in one of the split-seconds that they crossed paths and refused to sleep in Eren's room that night.

Monday was average. Classes. Work. Stress. Coming home and collapsing on the couch for ten minutes. Levi didn't come and demand to be fed like he usually did. But Eren felt for a second that there was someone else in the living room with him. When he surfaced from the throw pillow to see if he was right, he thought he saw a flash of black disappearing from the corner of his vision.

Tuesday finally threw them back together.

Eren came home significantly earlier than his sister for the first time in a while. It was a little after four in the afternoon. His classes had ended earlier than usual, and he managed to squeeze in his hours at the cafe with the same new punctuality. So he had at least two hours to kill before Mikasa came home. Maybe more, if Keith handed her extra work again.

He tried to get some of his work done. He had a five-page analysis of the last few chapters of _Les Mis_ due Friday, and the thesis for his research paper was still in its research-and-development phase. Then there were his calc assignments, the questions about the Wilson administration he had to fill out, and he had the monthly expenses log that he _still_ hadn't updated-

And yet, no amount of anxiety could make his attention span last any longer.

An hour and a half later, after a quick search on Wikipedia had turned into an odyssey through the weirdest rendition of a broadway musical he had ever seen, Eren gave up on trying to stay on task with his writing. He tried to switch focus to calculus, but he couldn't remember how to set up problems in the current section correctly, so nothing worked out the way it was supposed to. Eventually, Eren decided to let his laptop sleep and take a study break. And a shower. He hadn't had time for one of those in a while.

Eren wandered out into the central apartment, turned into the kitchen and started up the old stainless kettle for a cup of tea. He glanced out the window. The day outside was cold, grey and foggy. He shivered a little. It was halfway through October already, and the temperature was dropping fast. Soon he and Mikasa would have to add space heaters to their spending log. It was a shame their landlord was so cheap about the central heating. But the crappy upkeep was probably the only reason why they could afford the rent.

Eren left the kettle on just until there was steam starting to rise out of the spout, then shut the gas off and poured himself a cup of cranberry spice tea. He left the mug out to steep and went back to his room to pick up his _Les Mis_ copy. Even though he'd already read ahead of what was assigned, reading was something that didn't bore him. Maybe once he finished _Les Mis_, he could try and find some other works by Victor Hugo. He had an interesting writing style, and Eren was interested in seeing what else he could do with it.

When he came back, Levi was sitting on the counter with his tongue stuck in Eren's tea.

"L-Levi!" Eren screamed, jumping back as if the cat were a ghost. It wasn't all that far from the truth, since that was just about what he had become over the past few days. At the same time, the feline spazzed in place at the sudden sound of his name and his head shot up out of Eren's tea. His eyes had widened into tiny crystal balls and his tongue was stuck mid-lap out of his mouth, bright pink against inky black. Eren wasn't sure whether to laugh at him, scold him for doing one of the only two things he wasn't supposed to do, apologize to him for whatever he had apparently done wrong, or he didn't even know what else. So he just stood there, staring at Levi, and the cat stared back. Slowly, the cat's ears flicked forward again and his eyes slipped back into their narrow, sharpened expression.

_Oh. So it's you_, he muttered in the back of Eren's mind.

"Levi," Eren repeated, his voice going soft. He felt guilty. He didn't know why. He had ideas, but he could never be sure when it came to Levi. He wasn't a cat whisperer like Armin. But Levi had been avoiding him for a reason, and it didn't matter whether or not he knew what it was. He had done something to him, and he obviously wouldn't be coming anywhere near him until he set things right.

Levi sat up straight on the counter and kept his piercing eyes focused on Eren. _Well?_

"Levi, listen, I..." Eren began. "Okay. Obviously, you've been mad at me the past few days. So... All I can think is that I must have done something wrong. I don't know what it is, and I know you can't tell me yourself, but... But I just want to tell you I'm sorry. About whatever it is. I don't know why you're mad at me, but I feel really bad. I just want you to stop acting like this. Whatever I did, I didn't mean to upset you or anything. I promise, I didn't."

Levi blinked at him, the silver-blue glare of his eyes starting to soften. Eren felt just safe enough to take a step closer. "I don't know if that makes up for whatever I did, but... can you please not be mad at me anymore? Do you think you can forgive me, Levi?"

The cat looked away from him for a second and turned his ears back. Eren's heart sank. He'd seen Levi look like that before. Usually when he was absolutely, one hundred percent done with something. Eren sincerely hoped that something wasn't him.

Then Levi looked down at the cup of steaming, deep red liquid in front of him. Eren had a sudden stroke of genius.

"I'll let you have that cup of tea and we'll hang out in Mikasa's room if you say yes."

Just like that, the bitterness had gone out of Levi's eyes. He blinked affirmatively at Eren, then bent his head to continue lapping at the tea that no longer belonged to the one who had made it. It didn't take long for Eren to heat up another mug's worth of water and steep a new cup. He went for a gingerbread flavor instead of cranberry again. Levi didn't seem to be the type that would want to be matchy-matchy with anyone.

Armin was right about cats having personalities all their own. But this had to be taking it a little too far.

Eren carried both tea mugs into his sister's room, Levi tagging along close behind. As long as the two of them were finished before six and Levi didn't shed too much, she would never have to know. Eren kicked back on the collection of pillows by the headboard, and Levi took up residence next to his right hip. Eren had brought his laptop, abandoned his work efforts, and resorted to watching Starkid musicals. Levi crept up by his shoulder after a while, curious to see what the student was so interested in. Then he started watching, too. And, if Eren wasn't mistaken, he was enjoying it.

Four installments of Holy Musical! Batman later, Eren's phone buzzed, and Mikasa would be home in 20 minutes with discounted takeout from the diner.

Levi scrambled a little when the human shifted his position and pushed himself up from the pillows, disassembling the cat's perch. Eren shut the lid of his laptop and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. He ran his laptop back to his room, then went back for the tea mugs. He'd finished his a while ago, but Levi was still lapping at the second one. It had started to get cold. Eren picked both of them up, ran his to the sink and stuck the other in the microwave for a bit. He could leave it in his room for Levi to finish.

_That's weird_, he thought as he took the reheated mug back to his room. _I've never heard of a cat liking tea before._

He had just finished clearing the cat hair off of Mikasa's bed when she walked in through the door.

_Well, I suppose it's not the weirdest thing I've found out about him so far._

Levi appeared intermittently through dinner, and Mikasa ignored him. That was the policy she had taken up regarding the cat. As long as he was taken care of, she could just pretend he wasn't there. Levi returned the favor in full for her. That was probably why he liked going in her room so much. If she wasn't there to forbid him from going in, then what was stopping him?

The few hours after dinner were dedicated to studying. Things were quiet in the apartment, and Eren confined himself to his room and forced his brain to focus on recalling the minutia details of Woodrow Wilson's presidency. Levi watched him intently while he worked, as had become an interesting habit of his. Eventually, Eren reached the point where his neck muscles had magically turned into tire rubber and he felt as though he were scraping around the inside of his skull searching for more facts. It was at that point that he gave up on trying to get any more work done and decided to take that shower he had promised himself that afternoon.

Eren ran into the bathroom and began stripping his clothes off without very much long-term thought. He was so focused on his anticipation for the feeling of hot water running over his skin, finally relaxing and not having to fry his brain anymore that he forgot one crucial detail.

He didn't bring any pajamas into the bathroom.

Eren swore shortly under his breath. He couldn't believe he had left out something so simple. Sure, walking around in a towel would have been fine while he was home alone. But not with Mikasa possibly lurking around every corner. It had happened before when he and Mikasa had first moved in, far more than once, and it had never ended well. He'd been screamed at to "put some goddamn clothes on" one too many times to make that mistake again. Eren checked himself over. All he'd taken off so far was his shirt and started at the fly of his jeans. Not too bad. And even if it was, she wouldn't notice if he was quick. Eren did his fly again, grabbed his shirt and ran back to his room to collect what he'd left.

The first thing he noticed when he walked in was the mug sitting on the floor by Levi's food dish. Eren sighed. And there was another thing he'd forgotten. He stooped to pick it up and traveled out to the kitchen. He opened the dishwasher to drop it in amongst all the other things only to see that, once again, the racks were full and the machine needed to run. He crammed the extra mug in all the same, then dropped a soap packet into the dispenser, kicked it shut and pressed the button. The mechanical hum and rush of water started up, and Eren headed back to his room to grab his clothes. So far, Mikasa hadn't left her room and caught him wandering around shirtless yet. But he didn't want to risk it any further.

Right before he stepped back into the bathroom, he thought he heard the toilet flush.

The door was closed, and the light inside was still on. Eren groaned and knocked begrudgingly on the door. _Please, Mikasa, I know I was doing the thing you told me not to again, but I really, really need to shower..._

No one answered. Eren knocked one more time and glanced back at Mikasa's room. The light was on in there, too. He thought it over for a second, then shrugged and walked in. He dropped his clothes on the side of the sink, which was running with warm water. Eren stared at it for a second, the brushed it off and turned the faucet off. _Okay, that's kind of creepy. I don't remember this apartment being haunted._

And it wasn't haunted. But, as Eren quickly realized, it was now home to an aloof, quirky and unusually intelligent cat.

He heard a tap on the bathroom door. Eren spun around, and there was Levi, staring confusedly at the doorknob.

"Oh," the student murmured. "When did you get in here?"

Levi looked up at him and blinked. Eren returned the cat's stare for a second, then stepped past him and opened the door. "There you go. Sorry about shutting you in here."

The cat stared at the open door, as if he were confused about what he was supposed to do. Then he sat down on the bath mat and curled his tail around his paws. Not once did he make a move to leave.

"Go on, Levi. The door's right there. Leave."

He didn't move.

"Levi, I have to take a shower."

The cat twisted around and glanced flippantly up at him as if to say _So?_

Eren grumbled under his breath as he pulled the door shut again. "Fine. Just sit there. Get bored. I don't care. Just don't trip me when I get out." And, leaving it at that, he started stripping off the rest of his clothes.

Once again, there was that subtle, unsettling feeling shivering up his spine. The strange, cringe-worthy sensation that comes with being watched without your knowledge. Eren glanced down at the cat sitting motionless in the corner of the room. Levi seemed to be focused intently on the wall, as if he found the tiles fascinating or something. And, oddly enough, that feeling was gone. Eren turned away from him and toward the bath to turn the water on. He waited for a minute while the old, slow-running water heater kicked in and extended its product upstairs. Eren leaned back on the sink, completely naked, his clothes left in a careless pile on the floor. He looked over his shoulder and glanced at his reflection. That "watched" feeling was still there. But he didn't see anything, not even through the mirror. There was no one in the bathroom but him. Well, except for-

Eren glanced down at the cat in the corner again. This time Levi didn't even bother looking away. He stared at Eren with his impassive almond-shaped eyes, blinked once and flicked the end of his tail.

"Pervert," Eren scoffed. He stepped into the shower and pulled the curtain shut.

He heard something hit the floor tiles outside. A second later, something was batting at the edge of the curtain. Eren, now with his hair full of shampoo, pushed the lather away from his face and looked over at the fluttering plastic sheet. A tiny black paw snuck its way around the edge, extended its claws and pushed the curtain out of the way. Then Levi, his collar gone, was sitting on the edge of the bath.

"Oh my god, Levi," Eren growled. The cat's expression didn't change.

"I can't even get five minutes of privacy, can I?"

Levi inched his way along the edge of the bath and narrowed his eyes against the spray deflected off of Eren's body.

"Levi, stop. You'll get wet."

As soon as the words were out of Eren's mouth, Levi jumped down from the narrow ceramic ledge and slipped straight down to Eren's feet.

Eren looked down at him, bewildered. "What the-"

Levi tilted his head back and rubbed up against Eren's legs, soaking his fur in the residual water running down his skin. He maneuvered carefully around the human's feet, looking for a spot where there was the least obstruction to the spray. Eren stepped to the side a little, leaving a small space for the shower water to fall straight to the floor. Levi rushed into it and stood there, letting the water fall first straight onto his head, then arching his back into the torrenting drops. Eren had a brief flashback to the first night Levi ever spent in his apartment. Also the first and only time he'd been in the bath.

_Oh, right. He's into this sort of thing._

Eren finished up his shower as fast as he could, trying his hardest not to let any of his shampoo or soap runoff hit Levi. He had no idea what kind of reaction the cat would have to human products. He rinsed off and left the shower running while he stepped out. Levi's collar was lying on the floor outside, the copper clasp still done but the woven strip pulled out to twice its normal size. Eren picked it up and placed it on the edge of the sink. He quickly towel-dried himself, then debated whether or not it was worth putting his clothes on before going out. He was going straight back into the shower anyway. Eventually he settled on putting on pants before and making his trip to the hall closet as fast as he possibly could.

He dashed out of the bathroom and to the closet, and the bottle of pet shampoo was in exactly the same place that he'd left it two weeks earlier. He grabbed it and rushed back to the bathroom before Mikasa noticed the shower was running with no one but the cat she pretended didn't exist standing under it. Eren shut the bathroom door behind him, reached past the shower curtain and took the shower head down from its holder. He pushed the curtain back, and there Levi was, seeming a little put off because of the sudden relocation of the warm water spray. Eren knelt down and turned the spray back onto the cat, who appreciated its return very much. He put the shower head down after a minute and shut the water off just long enough to get some shampoo into the feline's coat, then quickly worked it into a lather and turned the water back on to rinse him off.

Eren had been dry for a while by the time he finished cleaning Levi up. He figured that his towel was probably a small sacrifice to give up for the cat's sake. He'd forgotten to bring an extra one from the hall closet. Besides, he could just do the laundry the next day. Mikasa wouldn't have to know why. And, strangely enough, Levi seemed intrigued when he saw Eren coming towards him with the towel he'd had thrown over his shoulders just a minute earlier. Eren lifted the tiny cat out of the bath and placed him into his lap, right on top of the towel. He grabbed the edges of the cloth and draped them both over the soaking furball sitting on his legs, turning him into a sort of loosely-wrapped burrito. He rubbed his hands vigorously over his back, drying him off the best that he could. It wasn't long before he felt vibrations shivering up through the towel and into his fingers. Eren smiled. Levi was so cute when he was happy like this.

Eren left the towel on the floor while he brushed his teeth, letting Levi curl up in it and stay warm while his still-damp fur slowly dried off. When he turned back to the cat, he had his little black nose buried in the fabric. He was purring deeply, his eyes closed in contentment. Eren knelt down to pick him up, and Levi stirred a little at the feeling of his towel-nest being disturbed. A smile tugged at the corners of Eren's mouth again and he stifled a laugh. He readjusted his tactics and kept Levi rolled up tightly in his towel while he lifted him carefully off the floor. The cat kicked a little when he realized he was no longer on solid ground, but a second later he was pressed against Eren's chest and starting to calm down. Eren carried him back to his room like that.

Once safely back in his own space, Eren kicked the door shut and lowered Levi gently onto the bed. The cat wound up lying on his side with his legs splayed limply in a tangle with the towel, but he didn't move. He just looked serenely up at him, a steady purr still rumbling in his small, slender chest. Eren felt himself smiling again. he reached a hand down to stroke the cat's head.

"You really like taking baths, don't you?" he said softly. Levi blinked slowly at him, stretched his forelegs out and kneaded the towel between his claws. Eren laughed. "You're weird." He laid down on the bed next to the towel and balanced his head on his arm, reaching out with the other to trace his fingers over Levi's soft, glossy fur.

"But I love you anyway," he murmured.

Levi's eyes widened as soon as the words left Eren's mouth. He flicked his gaze up toward him and blinked slowly. His eyes had a strange look about them, soft, almost sad. It was like he didn't know what the words meant. That is, if he even understood what he was saying. And Eren felt like he did. His heart started to feel heavy as he stroked his fingers gently over Levi's head.

_Maybe no one's ever told him that before_, he thought distantly.

Levi closed his eyes and buried his face into the towel. Eren heard him let out a long, heavy breath of air. It almost sounded like a sigh. Which was strange, considering the fact that he'd never heard a cat sigh before. Eren reached an arm out and hugged the towel close, squishing Levi against himself along with it. The feline opened his eyes a slit and gave Eren a long, irritated look, but he didn't try to fight him. He just stayed rolled up in his towel and let Eren hold him for as long as he wanted.

Eren got up a few minutes later to take Levi's collar back from the bathroom. He'd forgotten it there, and he couldn't let Mikasa notice anything else that he'd done wrong that night. He tossed his damp and now cat-hair-covered towel into the hamper and switched it out for a fleece blanket he had crammed onto a shelf in his closet. He sculpted it into another nest-like shape, which Levi seemed satisfied with. The cat nestled himself into the blanket, Eren grabbed his laptop and switched the lights off, and a few hours later they fell asleep like that, side by side on the bed.

Levi wasn't there anymore when he woke up.


	7. Chapter 7

**Welp, I finally figured out the actual name for the description of what Erwin looked like in my head. So now I've got to go back and edit that chapter where I said he was a ginger. Because it was not what my brain image was actually called. And it was Armin that made that comment, and he works in a vet's office. He's supposed to know this kind of stuff!**

**ASIDE FROM THAT,**

**I hope you all enjoyed the fluff in the last chapter, because it's back to business. The fluff is really all about character development that gives a bit more depth to the actual story, which, when I explained it on its own, is really very plain. I guess I could call this sort of a journal of all the highlights of Eren's life with Levi. That sounds kind of like a sitcom title. Life with Levi. Someone should probably be writing this down.**

**TUMBLR TIME. asking-appelia is my author blog, where at this point I post more random crap than anything else, since that's all I really have time to do. I hate school sometimes. I'm also tracking the tag "fic: the october story" just in case anyone decides they want to do any fan things for it. I hope someone will at some point, since the story's gotten a pretty good reception. But, so far it's been sort of... eh.**

**I'm going to shut up now. Story time.**

* * *

><p>It was raining again on Thursday.<p>

Eren looked outside at the sheets of rain splattering against the window as he leaned against the kitchen counter. The sky outside was gray and the world still dark, even though it was almost eight. He'd have to go out there in half an hour. His classes started at nine that day. A shudder ran down his spine at the thought. He was going to get soaked the second he stepped out the door.

"It's quite a downpour out there," he said. He turned to the little black cat sitting across from him on the counter. "Guess you're going to have to stay in today," he added with a smirk.

Levi stared deadenedly at Eren and turned his ears back. He didn't seem amused. Then again, he never did.

"Come on. You were out all day yesterday. Don't you get tired? Or cold, or lost, or... anything?"

The cat bent his head and raised a paw to lick it and rub it over his face.

"If you go outside, you're probably going to get really dirty."

Levi stopped mid-lick and looked up at Eren.

"There's gonna be a lot of mud out there," he said, clasping his hands around his tea mug. "And you know what the weather's been getting like lately. It's probably freezing." He took a leisurely sip. "Just saying."

The cat looked at him for a moment longer, then went back to cleaning himself as if he hadn't said anything in the first place. Once that was finished, he jumped down from the counter and dashed off to Mikasa's room. Eren stared after him and sighed. He'd stopped trying to keep Levi out of there. It didn't seem like he could make him stop going back. He quietly dropped his gaze back to the countertop, poked at the scrambled eggs on his plate and shoveled a forkful into his mouth. Levi had finished off his tea saucer of eggs and left the miniature plate for Eren to pick up. For a cat as clean as he was, he certainly expected Eren to do a lot of his dirty work.

"You can open doors, you can undo your collar, you can fucking_ read_," Eren muttered to himself as he picked up the plate and stuck it into the dishwasher, "so why can't you do the dishes, if you're so goddamn intelligent?"

He finished his own breakfast and dropped the plate in after Levi's saucer. After draining the rest of his tea and setting the kettle up to make another dose of caffeine to take to class, he went back to his room. He still hadn't gotten dressed. Something in him was just feeling really behind schedule that morning. Levi walked in while he was digging through his drawers for something socially acceptable to wear. He watched while Eren changed, and sure, it still felt uncomfortable, but Eren didn't see any reason why it did. It was far from the first time it had happened. And at that point, Eren was pretty sure there wasn't anything he could do about it anymore.

Once he was dressed, he went about getting his school things together, fixing the rat's nest that was supposed to be his hair, and putting together the insulated travel cup of English breakfast that would help him stay awake through that day's lecture in literary analysis.

He almost tripped over Levi while he was running back and forth.

Eren let out a startled cry as his socks slipped on the floor and he went stumbling forward. His hands shot out in front of him. They caught the edge of the kitchen counter and brought his fall to a sudden stop. A second more and his head would have hit it instead.

"Jesus, Levi!" Eren scolded. "You trying to kill me or something?"

"Meow," Levi replied coolly.

Eren straightened himself back up and glared at the cat before glancing at the time again, running back to his room and grabbing his backpack and keys. Levi followed him as he dashed to the door, then weaved around his legs and scampered out into the foyer.

"Levi!" Eren shouted, running down the stairs after the restless cat and leaving the door to his apartment open behind him. Levi was standing by the outside door, holding his tail high and bumping his head against the varnished wood. Eren sighed and crouched down to his level. The cat looked expectantly up at him and nuzzled the door one more time for good measure.

"It's raining, Levi. You can't go outside today. I'm sorry," Eren said firmly.

"Meow," Levi shot back, his ears turned back in indignation.

"You wouldn't want to be out there anyway. It's all wet and gross."

"Meow!"

Eren pressed his lips into a tight, conflicted line and glanced back up at the still-open apartment door. He turned back to Levi. "Are you sure about this?" he asked.

Levi gave the door another affirmative rub as an answer.

Eren sighed and stood up. "Okay. But I'm not going to be home all day. If you want to come back, I'm not going to be here to let you in."

Levi looked up at him and blinked slowly. Eren felt like it meant that he understood. So he went back up the stairs and pulled the apartment door shut. He gave the knob a quick twist to make sure it was locked, then went back to the front door and knelt down in front of Levi.

"Don't get lost out there, okay?" he said, giving the cat a quick scratch behind the ears.

Levi chirped in agreement, and Eren smiled. He tapped on the tarnished metal clasp of his collar. "Be sure to keep this on. You don't want people to mistake you for a stray."

Levi cocked his head at him as if he were confused. And then, Eren was laughing. He couldn't help it. The words just didn't make sense anymore. He stroked his fingers over Levi's soft, glossy black fur and his supple, strong back. He barely even resembled the scrawny creature that Eren had dragged home that day that now seemed so long ago. No, Levi definitely wasn't a stray anymore.

"Like that would even happen," Eren said. With that, he stood up, pulled the door open and stepped out into the rain, Levi following close behind.

* * *

><p>European lit was usually an uneventful class. Thursday was no exception.<p>

Eren tapped his pen against his notebook, which was already halfway filled with notes after only two months of school. He would have to be getting a new one soon if he wanted to have enough space for the rest of the year. Almost all of the work was assigned as homework. Classtime usually consisted of discussions and not much else. Eren had finished _Les Miserables_ just in time for the due date. It always took him too long to get through books. He liked reading. There was no question about that. He just didn't like having a deadline for it and then a million analytical questions to answer afterward. Sadly, that was all the professor seemed to be concerned about.

"So, in that sense, Fantine's sacrifice for Cosette sort of represents the futility of the whole revolution," Armin said definitively, finishing off his point in his usual I-think-this-is-right-but-not-if-the-professor-disagrees fashion.

"That's a good observation. I don't think anyone else has put things into that perspective before," the professor, a slightly scruffy-looking man in owl-eyed glasses, replied. "However, you shouldn't be so equivocal. If you have a point, you need to argue it."

Armin nodded, his face flushing a nervous shade of pink. "Okay."

Eren looked back down at his notes and quickly scribbled down a few words._ Fantine's sacrifice = futile revolution._

"Eren," a soft voice whispered. "Hey, Eren."

Eren stopped scribbling in his notebook and glanced over at the seat next to him. Another student had started speaking, explaining some theory about the significance of Javert's quest for unjust justice, and he wasn't really listening. Armin was looking at him, his eyes looking a little bluer than usual.

"Yeah?" Eren replied quietly. The professor didn't seem to be paying much attention to them. He probably didn't care very much about what happened in his class, so long as the discussion kept going and everyone accomplished what they were supposed to.

"Earlier today, I was thinking..," he began. He glanced warily up at the professor before going on. "You know, Halloween is coming up soon."

Eren nodded. "And?"

"You want to go out after class and maybe, I don't know, get some decorations or something?"

Eren stared blankly at him. "Armin, you know I can't afford decorations." _Not since I took Levi home, anyway,_ he thought bitterly.

"I never said _you_ had to buy any," Armin explained. "I just wanted to get into the spirit of things. I mean, it's going to be Halloween in less than two weeks. Normally I'd have everything up by now, but with classes and work at the vet and everything, I just haven't had the time."

"Couldn't you have just taken decorations from your grandpa's house or something?"

"You think I would steal holiday decorations from my own grandpa?"

Eren suppressed a laugh. "Why not?"

"Because I didn't, that's why," Armin tossed back with a smile. "I've got some leftover money from the vet job. I've already set aside the rent and food expenses and everything else. There's a pretty decent amount left. And since I don't have much to do today..." He left an expectant blank space at the end, waiting for Eren to fill it.

"I don't know," Eren said hesitantly, flipping his pencil around in his fingers. "I could take off of work for today if I make it up this weekend, I guess."

"So... is that a yes?" Armin ventured.

Eren looked over at him and then back at his notes. He still had a bit of work left to finish for that week, and knowing his professors, they would probably assign him something new before the weekend started. But he figured that it could wait a few hours. He could afford to push it off for just a little longer, if it meant he got to spend time with Armin.

"Sure," he conceded. "Fine. I guess we could go, if we don't stay out too long."

A smile broke out on Armin's face. "Awesome. See you after biochemistry, then?"

"So that's what you have then."

"Yeah," Armin said, cocking an eyebrow. "You didn't know that?"

"Did you memorize _my_ schedule?"

"Nope." Armin dropped his expression and went back to his notes.

"So... around three, then?"

His friend glanced back over and nodded. "Yeah, that sounds about right."

* * *

><p>Eren had almost completely forgotten about the Halloween season. He was glad that Armin had reminded him.<p>

Time had been passing by him differently ever since he had started college. Back when he had free time and wasn't living on his own, Halloween had been one of his favorite times of the year. Key point in case, _when he had free time_. He didn't anymore. He barely had time to eat, shower and get an adequate amount of sleep anymore. He had stopped paying attention to which holidays were when after the halfway point of his first year. He couldn't worry about that sort of thing anymore, now that he had classes, a job and his own apartment to balance and maintain. But somehow Armin had managed to fit it in. It was nice of him to invite Eren along for the ride.

And then there was Armin.

Eren hadn't made many friends after starting college. Armin hadn't, either. Something about the combination of his volatile temper and his friend's social anxiety really hadn't done much for either of their social lives. That was probably the only reason they tried so hard to stick together over the past year. They didn't really have anyone else.

Life hadn't been putting this much strain on their friendship since junior year of high school. He thought that living in the same building would let them see each other more often, but apparently it didn't matter how close together they lived if they were always busy. It had been a while since he had been able to hang out with Armin for more than a few hours at a time. He took just about every chance he had to spend some time with him. One reason for that was simply because there was no one else to spend it with. But even more than that, he wanted to. It sucked that he hardly had time to be with his friend outside of class anymore.

The rain stopped just before two and dissipated into a fine mist. Eren met Armin outside of the Rose dorms, right between the building Armin's biochem lab and the lecture hall where Eren's US history class held presentations. From there, they left campus and set out into town to try and find something worthwhile to stick to the house and make it look festive. After almost an hour of wandering around town, stopping in the smaller stores and looking through an endless array of overpriced Halloween merchandise neither student had any intention of buying, they eventually found their way into a Walgreens and headed straight for the seasonal section. More time was spent trying on masks, looking at costumes they wouldn't be wearing, and a considerable amount went to messing around with a couple of life-sized plastic skeletons, propping them up and scaring people in other aisles. Eventually they decided to stop before they were caught and kicked out of the store. Armin settled on buying a few packages of wall clings, one of the skeletons he'd abused and a bag of cobwebs that he insisted on sharing with Eren. He also picked up a little plastic _Trick or Treat_ sign and a string of orange fairy lights for the front of the house. The entire haul made Eren wonder exactly how much Armin had left over from his paycheck. Then again, his best friend had always been smarter with money than he was. If he wanted to keep his bank account in order, Eren had to avoid shopping at all costs (literally).

They propped the skeleton up between them like it was their drunk friend on the walk back. It earned them a few stares from people passing by in the street, but that was the all the fun of it. When they reached the porch of the split-level, Armin took the skeleton from Eren's shoulder and let his friend take the single bag of decorations so he could have a free hand to unlock the door.

"What the hell are you going to do with that thing?" Eren asked, looking back at the big plastic corpse prop that was almost the size of his friend's whole body.

"Not sure," Armin replied, shifting the thing up on his shoulder. "Probably just stick it somewhere and pose it or something."

The lock clicked, and Eren pushed the door open. "I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to have that thing hanging around in my apartment at night."

"Yeah. That might be a bad surprise. Maybe in the foyer, then?"

"That's kind of small. Besides, who's gonna see it there?"

"Hm. Good point." Armin stepped inside and nudged the door closed with his foot. "Maybe we could put a chair out on the porch and prop it up there." His eyes lit up with festive spirit. "And it can hold a bowl of candy when trick or treaters come by! What do you think about that?"

"But we didn't get any trick or treaters last year," Eren pointed out.

"That's because we didn't leave anything out. Besides, we weren't even here. We were at that party Jean was hosting at his place off campus, remember?"

"You mean the one where he got drunk and wouldn't stop grinding on Mikasa and I woke up locked in a closet the next morning?" Eren cringed. " I'd really rather not."

Armin laughed as he dug through his pocket for his keys. "Come on. It couldn't have been that bad."

"I couldn't get my spine back to normal for a week!"

"Okay, maybe the closet thing was a little unpleasant. But the Sharpie messages everyone wrote on your face were pretty hilarious."

Eren sighed heavily and rolled his eyes. "Can we not talk about this?"

"Fine, fine, whatever," Armin said, though he made no effort to conceal the mischievous smile on his face. "Hey, do you want to take the cobwebs up to your apartment first?"

Eren glanced at the bag looped over his wrist. "I thought you wanted to use them."

"I do. But I think I've got enough decorations to go around." He made a point of readjusting the skeleton on his shoulder. "You take however much you want, and then I'll use whatever's left. The bags can always cover a lot more than they seem like they will."

Eren thought about his proposition for a second while Armin unlocked his door. The hinges squeaked as it swung open, and he peered past his friend through the doorway to see Erwin sitting leisurely on the back of the couch. The huge cat jumped down from his perch and scampered to the door to say hello. Armin smiled at him and leaned the skeleton against the wall to crouch down and scratch his ears..

"Okay," Eren finally agreed. "Just let me drop it off upstairs. I'll be right back."

He turned away and dashed up the stairs to his door, the Walgreens bag bouncing on his wrist. He dug his keys out of his pocket again and walked into his apartment. He dropped them on the counter alongside the bag. He was back in the building now. He'd be just downstairs. He could probably leave the apartment unlocked. With that thought in mind, he pushed aside the other decorations in the bag to dig up the cobwebs. He had to think of somewhere to put them. He couldn't right then. He would cross that bridge when he got to it, in other words once he decided that he had the time to put them up.

Eren never noticed the tiny black shadow that crept out of his room and out into the apartment. Not until it issued a low growl and broke into a dead sprint for the open door.

Eren spun around, his eyes wide, just in time to see Levi speeding past him.

_How the hell did he get in here?_

"Levi!" he heard himself scream. He abandoned the Walgreens bag on the kitchen counter and took off after the cat. By then, the creature was already out the door and barreling down the stairs, headed straight for...

Eren's nerves froze. Armin's apartment. Had he left the door open, or...

A sudden cry from downstairs answered his question quickly enough.

Eren raced out of his apartment and back down the stairs, kicking his door shut on the way. He burst into Armin's apartment. The door was still standing open, just as he'd suspected. His friend was standing in the living room with his back against the wall, staring down at the floor in the middle of the apartment. Eren followed his wide, bewildered gaze and found two cats, one huge and pale, the other tiny and dark, standing mere feet apart on the area rug.

Levi had dropped into a fighting stance, his back threateningly arched and his legs crouched underneath him, ready to spring him forward at a moment's notice. His ears were flattened over the top of his head, his pupils blown up into menacing black pools and his normally sleek fur standing on end. He dug his unsheathed claws into the carpet and let out a livid growl. It was meant to intimidate the large, cream-colored cat standing across from him. But Erwin didn't seem fazed. His stance seemed tense, a little defensive, but otherwise he was relatively calm. His fur was still smooth while Levi's was fluffed up in agitation, his pupils small and his ears and whiskers standing straight. Erwin's clear blue eyes stared ahead into the stormy silver venom in Levi's. They were still for now, but it wouldn't last. Eren knew that much. He looked over at Armin, who took his gaze away from the standoffish cats just long enough to stare despondently back.

"Do something!" Eren murmured harshly.

"I-I can't," Armin stuttered in reply. His eyes bounced back and forth between his friend and his cat.

"Why not?"

"It- It all happened too fast! I left my door open for literally twenty seconds, and when I turned around, he had just appeared out of nowhere and they were standing like that-"

"And you can't step in or anything?"

Armin shook his head feverishly. "I don't know. I could try but... I-I don't want to risk it."

Eren turned to his friend, the tension suddenly morphing into confusion. "Risk it?" he murmured. "Risk what?"

Armin opened his mouth to answer, and Levi struck before he could say anything.

A rage-filled screech rang out in the room as one cat hurled himself at the other like a small, furry projectile. Erwin's stance faltered for a second, his eyes widening, before he skittered out of the way. Levi landed inches away from him on the rug, dug his claws in and launched himself forward again. The larger cat tried to dodge him again, but his efforts failed as Levi's extended claws caught his side and dug into his skin. Eren saw Armin's cat visibly wince in pain before shaking himself loose.

"Erwin!" Armin cried out, his voice a panicked squeak. He dove into the fray on the area rug, his arms outstretched to push the two militant cats apart. Immediately Levi spun around and spat furiously at the intervening human. His claws lashed out, Armin didn't move fast enough, and a split second later his hand had been slashed open. The blonde let out a short, sudden cry and reeled back, clutching his hand.

"Oh my god!" Eren shouted, dashing to Armin's side. "Oh my god. Armin. Armin, are you okay?" He grabbed his friend's wrist and pulled his one hand away from the other. Armin winced and inhaled sharply through his teeth. Blood was welling up from three clean scratches carved into his skin.

Eren glanced over at the cats, still fighting on the rug. Armin let out another small, muted noise of pain, and Eren noticed Erwin's ear twitch towards the sound. The cat broke his focus from the fight just long enough to see his human companion kneeling a few feet away on the rug. He noticed the blood as well, oozing from his hand where his adversary had scratched it. As soon as the image registered, things changed. Erwin's ears turned out sideways. He turned his head back and growled at Levi, his expression turned to one of pure anger. The fighting started again, the two cats hissing and swiping wildly at each other. They rolled across the floor, and Levi somehow managed to push Erwin around the corner of the couch. The smaller cat hissed, dug his claws into the rug and readied himself to pounce again.

He didn't even make it an inch off the ground before Erwin's huge paw came down on the back of his neck. Levi let out a startled shriek and was dragged behind the couch.

Everything turned ominously quiet after that.

For a second, the world around Eren froze. His eyes went wide, his mouth dropped open or its own accord. His fingers unintentionally tightened on Armin's wrist. His friend murmured something, but he couldn't hear it. He was fixated on the rug, and that corner of the couch. On the space where his cat had been standing. On whatever the hell had just happened between him and Erwin.

_Levi..._

Eren's heart was in his throat for an agonizing second. Then an irate growl drifted up from the other side of the couch. He could barely contain the sigh of relief that slipped from his lungs.

Eren let go of Armin's wrist and the two students got up from the floor and raced each other to the couch. Eren knelt back down on the rug and peered around the corner while Armin perched himself on the cushions and cautiously leaned over the side, keeping his hands at a safe distance from both of the cats. Not that he needed to anymore. It seemed that things had finally sorted themselves out.

Levi was on the floor, his front legs sprawled uselessly in front of him. His hind legs were bunched up under his body, stuck in a pounce-ready position but unable to move. His head was being pressed into the floor, and a pair large, cream-colored paws was resting between his shoulders, keeping him securely pinned to the rug. Erwin stood over him, watching as his small opponent struggled and lashed his tail in irritation. The larger cat didn't look very triumphant, despite his hard-won victory. If Eren had to name the look on his face, he probably would have called it concern. He was looking down at Levi, his eyes looking as clouded with worry as a cat's could. Eren could almost see the stripes on his face drawing together into a frown. He'd gotten quite good at reading cats' expressions since meeting Levi.

"What the..." Armin murmured. Levi thrashed a little under Erwin's paws and let out another irritated growl, cutting the human short.

Eren glanced up at his friend and shrugged before turning his attention to his cat. He leaned in towards the two of them and sighed. Erwin looked up at him with his watchful blue eyes. Levi did the same, his dark, livid face conveying an unmistakable message.

_Make him stop._

"Armin, do you think you could, um... maybe move your cat off of my cat?"

The blonde looked warily down at Erwin and at the seething black sprawl of fur pinned under his paws. "I really don't want to stick my hands near them again."

"Fine," Eren grumbled with a heavy sigh. He leaned carefully in towards Erwin and extended a cautious hand towards him. "Can you move your feet, Erwin? I need to have Levi back now." The large cat made no protests as Eren carefully edged his hands in between him and Levi. As soon as the pressure from Erwin's paws began to lighten, he felt Levi start to squirm. Eren quickly secured his hands around Levi's slender body, yanked him off of his feet and pressed him securely against his chest. The feline struggled and twisted around to snarl at Erwin one last time, but that was it. Levi dug his claws into the fabric of Eren's shirt, and the fight was over once and for all.

With Levi's fury safely out of the way, Armin climbed over the side of the couch and settled on the rug next to Erwin. He gingerly ushered the cat closer to himself and looked him over, running his skillful fingertips over his fur as he searched for injuries. There wasn't too much damage, only a few scratches here and there. Still, Armin sighed quietly and looked at the cat with his eyebrows drawn and concern in his eyes. "Erwin..." he said quietly.

"Is it just me, or do you think there's something to all this fighting?" Eren asked.

"Hm?" Armin looked up from fawning over Erwin, surprised. "What do you mean?"

Eren stared at him for a second, his mind drawing a sudden blank. _Wait a second. Did I seriously just say that out loud?_

"Nothing," Eren said dejectedly. "N-never mind. Just talking to myself."

"Oh," Armin said. "I just thought it sounded interesting. I guess not, though."

The apartment was quiet for a moment, Eren struggling to hold Levi still, Armin looking Erwin over again and again to make sure that there weren't any serious injuries that he had missed.

"Maybe you should try letting Levi go," Armin said all of a sudden.

Eren started, almost losing focus and dropping Levi on the floor. "What?"

"Try putting Levi down on the floor," Armin said, rephrasing his words. "It's possible that he just had a bad reaction or something. He might be over it now. Maybe he'll be a little more agreeable, now that the aggression is out of his system."

"But if we do that, won't they just start fighting again?"

"I don't know. Maybe. We'll never know unless we try."

Levi squirmed and his claws poked at Eren's skin as he tightened his arms. "This is probably a bad idea, Armin."

"I know, just..." Armin started, then he trailed off as if he'd lost his place in a book. "Just... just try it, okay? If things start going wrong again, we'll break them up. I won't chicken out again. I promise."

Eren took a deep breath and held onto Levi as he ran the idea through his head. "Okay. But if anyone so much as growls, we are never letting these two in the same room again for as long as they live."

Armin nodded vehemently, and Eren loosened his hold on Levi. In a second, the lithe black cat had wriggled out of his grasp and landed gracefully on all four paws. He turned towards Erwin and took up his fighting stance again. Erwin didn't move in the slightest, despite Armin hovering behind him and watching the whole scene with apprehension. Eren was sure that Levi would start menacing the other cat again and he would be forced to make good on his promise. But for some reason, he never did.

For what felt like an hour, neither of the cats did a thing. Levi stood ready to spring, but remained motionless. Erwin didn't seem in the mood to fight. He simply looked at Levi with eyes that were strangely wise for a cat, his ears pricked and his whiskers forward. He looked almost as if he were waiting for the other cat to say something, and whatever it happened to be, he was willing to listen.

Levi crept closer to the larger cat, his feet moving slowly as if he were stalking prey. Erwin didn't move in the slightest. As soon as Levi noticed, he snatched the opportunity and launched forward. Eren jumped, ready to dive in between them as soon as it was necessary, Armin copying his movements in almost perfect synchronization. Levi raised a paw, claws out and ready to take another swipe at Erwin.

Erwin, on the other hand, wasn't having it. He intercepted Levi's paw with his own and swatted it aside. Eren caught a flash of anger appear in Levi's eyes, and Erwin's face seemed to harden. Then, in the same way that he had with Levi for almost the entire past month, he knew exactly what it meant.

_I'm tired of doing this. Let's not fight anymore._

Levi issued a low growl as his reply. Contrary to his earlier promise, Eren didn't move to get between the two of them. He wasn't sure how, but he knew that this had to happen.

_How can you even ask me to do that, after what you've done?_

Erwin ventured a small step forward, and Levi dropped out of his attack position.

_Can you forgive me?_

The smaller cat briskly turned his head away, his eyes narrow and sharp.

_Why should I?_

Erwin blinked and let out a soft, sincere _meow_ in Levi's direction.

_You know why._

Levi hunched his narrow shoulders and slumped forward, staring at the floor. Erwin meowed at him again, as if he were trying to elicit some kind of response. Levi still refused to give him one. He wouldn't even look at the other cat, his livid eyes focused intently on the floor. The larger cat bent his head to the other's level and nudged his ear with the end of his nose. Levi's head twitched upright and he dug his claws into the carpet. He spat out a short, icy hiss in Erwin's face. The cream-colored cat didn't seem to care. He nudged him again, bumping his nose apologetically against his forehead. Levi turned his ears back and dropped his head to stare at the floor again. Eren guessed that it must have been some kind of surrender, since Erwin took the action as an invitation to give Levi a short lick on the forehead. The raven cat sat bolt upright at the feeling, his sharp blue eyes flashing in indignance before he turned away and retreated back to Eren's side.

"What just happened?" Eren murmured to no one in particular as Levi settled down on the rug next to his legs.

"I don't know," Armin replied slowly. "One second they're after each others' lives, and then..." He reached out and wrapped his arms around Erwin, lifting him up from the floor and relocating the both of them to the couch. The cat seemed to have no objections about sitting cordially next to the student.

"Is this something that usually happens with cats?" Eren asked absently.

"No," Armin affirmed. "Definitely not."

* * *

><p>Eren had to go back upstairs after a few hours at Armin's. For the rest of the time he was there, Levi and Erwin were oddly tolerant of each other. At one point, all four of them had gathered on the couch at once and there wasn't even a suggestion of a conflict. The violent rivalry between the cats that had existed such a short time ago had all but disappeared.<p>

When Eren finally gathered Levi again and headed back upstairs, his first order of business was to search the whole apartment and find out how the hell Levi had gotten back into the house in the first place, since he distinctly remembered letting him outside that morning. One of the windows in his room, the one that was missing its screen, was pushed open a few inches, there was a thin sheen of condensation on the sill. Eren wiped it away and evaluated the size of the gap. It was undoubtedly large enough for something as small and flexible as Levi to squeeze through. He wondered how long the cat had that particular trick hidden up his sleeve. If he was able to do this much, Eren was honestly confused as to why the cat even bothered asking for permission to go out anymore.

Eren decided that he could use the few remaining hours of the day to try and make a dent in his homework. Mikasa had come home while he was still downstairs, and she had been keeping herself busy with studying, so he figured that he may as well. He actually managed to get a satisfactory amount done. Thirty calc problems and half an essay later, he felt like his brain was starting to drift and figured it was time he took a shower and got some sleep. Levi wanted in on the shower as well, and Eren didn't see any reason to say no. He was pretty sure at that point that it would become a routine thing sooner or later.

Eren was lying in bed, one arm leaning on the pillow and propping his head up while the other held his new copy of _Memoirs of a Madman_ open. It was just like his professor to start assigning new reading material before the class was even finished analyzing the last book. But it wasn't anything Eren couldn't handle. He wasn't a fast reader, but he could force himself to play the part if that was what the situation called for. Levi perched at his shoulder and peered around the side of his head. The pillow had become his usual spot when he and Eren were lying there, not asleep but not really doing much else.

Things had changed so much since he had first come home with Eren as a skittish, emaciated stray. Eren could hardly believe how far they had come.

He craned his neck to look over his shoulder, and his eyes met with the observant drops of silver-blue that he had come to know so well. Levi blinked slowly at him. "You liking this one so far?" Eren asked.

Levi didn't reply, but he did stretch a paw out and start tugging at Eren's shirt. Eren let slip a soft, airy laugh and rolled over onto his back. He stared up at the ceiling and the cat leaned over him.

"Meow?" he said inquisitively.

A small smile tugged at Eren's lips. He left the book pages-down on the pillow beside him and rubbed his fingertips over the top of Levi's head. The cat's eyes drifted shut in contentment.

"I have to say today was pretty interesting," Eren said to him and feeling like a crazy cat person while he did. "I had no idea you knew how to open windows too. You must have been really desperate to get out of that rain. I told you that you wouldn't like it. Remember?"

Levi's eyes opened into slits for a moment, just long enough to shoot Eren a sarcastic look before falling closed again.

"I know, I know. I did warn you, though," Eren continued.

A few minutes passed and the room stayed quiet. Eren pulled Levi closer and started petting him with his other hand, since the first had gotten tired after a while. The cat sat next to him in his meatloaf pose. His soft, steady purr was wavering in his chest, as if it were trying to rise to the surface and he were pushing it back down again. It was like he was playing a game with Eren, trying as hard as he could not to let on that he liked his attention as much as he did.

"I've been wondering about you and Erwin," Eren said quietly.

Levi's eyes opened, and he turned towards the human, a strange look on his face that Eren couldn't quite place.

"Did something happen between you and him?" he went on. "A long time ago?"

Just as he'd expected, Levi didn't respond. Instead he unfolded his legs, stood up, stretched his back and made his way down to the end of the bed.

"Okay, fine. Don't answer me," Eren grumbled. He stuck a piece of notepaper between the pages of _Memoirs_ and dropped it on the nearest flat surface that wasn't the floor, then flicked the switch off on his bedside lamp. The room went dark for a second, then his eyes began adjusting to the faint, silvery tint of the moonlight seeping in from behind his blinds. A warm, soft weight settling down at the end of the bed and pressing up against his foot let him know that Levi had decided to turn in along with him, at least for however long he and Eren would be asleep at the same time.

"But really, Levi," Eren said into the darkness. "What is going on between you and Erwin?"

There wasn't any answer. Not one he could find, not one anyone could give him. All he could do was guess, wonder about it until it stopped mattering. He wasn't sure when that would happen, but it certainly wasn't now. The question stayed floating around in his head until he drifted off to sleep.

_What is going on between you and Erwin?_

_Levi, where did you even come from?_


	8. Chapter 8

**Hi, everyone. Contrary to what I said in the last author's note, this fic is definitely not going to be finished by Christmas. Maybe New Year's, if we're extra lucky. But let's face it. Levi's crossed our paths here.**

**SO lately even more people have asked me when Levi is going to turn into a human, and the only answer I can give you is WAIT. This story is supposed to take place over the course of a month. There's a reason why it doesn't happen right away! You'll see when we get there, I promise!**

**Aside from that, one or two readers have tried to guess what was going on between Levi and Erwin. Hopefully this chapter will clear things up for the lot of you. And if you're still confused, Levi will explain everything at the end. **

**Time to subject myself to your approval. Leave a review. Leave some kind of proof that you like this story. Follow me on tumblr at asking-appelia. Post something under the tag "fic: the october story." **

**And now, story time.**

* * *

><p>Eren was standing in an alleyway between two buildings. Traffic hummed by in the street outside, and deep golden light from the lampposts on the other side seeped into the shadowy little alcove and chased the darkness away. It was quiet there. Not many people wandered around in the streets at that hour of night.<p>

Then, all of a sudden, it wasn't quiet anymore. The shrill chime of a message tone cut through the peaceful night air. Eren's pocket buzzed. He groaned under his breath as he thrust a hand viciously into the pocket of his black felt peacoat. _Please, not this again..._

He dug around for a moment, searching for his cell phone. His fingers wrapped around the little vibrating contraption and he pulled it impatiently out into the open. Blue artificial light flashed in his face, forcing him to squint in order to look at the screen. A generic stick-figure portrait image was displayed on the screen, along with a flickering image of a tiny ringing telephone. _Incoming call,_ the screen informed him. Underneath that was a phone number that he had seen ten too many times before. The one that he had seen for the first time scrawled on a napkin in a nightclub. It was the same one that he had deleted from his contacts just a few hours ago. It had flashed on the screen of his phone shortly afterward. Then it did it again. And again. _And again._

Eren stared unfeelingly at the phone and waited for the ringing to stop. Eventually it did. The phone went still and quiet in his hand and the screen returned to black. He sighed and stuffed the thing back into his pocket. _When the hell is she going to learn?_

Eren looked out at the nearby street. Cars were rushing by every few seconds. He thought very seriously about stepping out and hailing a cab to take him home, but he never got around to it. He couldn't be bothered right at that second. He had come out that night for one reason and one reason only: to get as drunk as he could, to erase every last trace of her from himself. Possibly find someone new, if that was what it came down to. Besides, he could stand to loiter around in the quiet little alleyway between two bars. It was nice, being on his own out there. He was alone for the first time in what felt like an eternity.

If he'd had any idea that this last one would be so clingy, he would never have looked at her in the first place.

Eren's pocked buzzed again. It was probably her. For days at that point, it had been no one but her. But then, there was always the miniscule possibility that it was someone else. It was still worth checking. Eren tugged his phone back out of his pocket, hoping that it was someone other than her. Maybe, just maybe, it would be a notification from his boss at the bookstore, asking him to put together another "special order." Or possibly one of the few people that he had actually bothered saving into his contact list. It might have been that girl from the club on the upper east side of the city. She'd been a good time, even if she hadn't spoken to him since then. Or the guy that he'd spent a few pub-crawling evenings with. He'd called back once or twice.

_At least_ he _knows that I'm not looking for anything serious_, Eren thought as he opened his inbox. There was a new message lit up at the top of the screen.

**347-XXX-XXXX: I miss you.**

Eren gritted his teeth and sighed sharply through them. It was her again. He should have known. A low, aggravated noise grumbled up from his chest as he scrolled through the endless stream of messages.

**347-XXX-XXXX: Hey! I'm off of work tonight. Wanna go out or somthing?**

**347: Hellooooo?**

**347: R U there?**

**347: Seriously, yes or no?**

**347: Hello?**

**347: Are you even there?**

**347: Why aren't you answering me?**

**347: Are you avoiding me Levi?**

All of them sent by her, none of them responded to. He was avoiding that at all costs. He wouldn't start giving her false hope about anything. He might have been a bit of a user, but he wasn't _completely_ heartless.

Eren closed out of his inbox and locked his phone, shoving it into his pocket again. That settled it. He wouldn't be checking that damned thing again until tomorrow. She should probably have gotten the message by then.

_Christ. I spend one night with the girl and suddenly it's like she wants to get married right away_.

He sighed and leaned back against the wall. One hand buried itself deep into his pocket, nestled comfortably next to his phone. The other reached up and ran its fingers frustratedly over the back of his neck, across the stubble at the base of his neck and twisting into his sleek raven hair. He had a habit of pulling at the spot between the short and long sections when he was particularly agitated. He made a mental note to try and stop. He was going to end up pulling it out at this rate.

His phone buzzed in his pocket again. Eren didn't make a single move to answer it.

_No, I'm not the one who needs to stop. She is._

His ringtone broke the silence of the alleyway. Eren stayed still, leaning back against the wall, staring at the asphalt and waiting for it to stop. Eventually it did, hopefully for the last time.

"Still breaking hearts, I see."

Eren's head snapped upright. That voice. He knew it all too well.

His head spun towards the opening, towards the source of light streaming into his dark little sanctuary. _No. It can't be. How did he..._

"What the hell are you doing here?"

The tall, handsome figure of a man laughed as he stepped into the alleyway. Eren tensed up at the sight of him. He walked with such confidence, as if he didn't care in the least that he wasn't welcome. He knew that a respectable man like him wouldn't be caught dead in a place such as this.

"I would be asking you the same thing if I didn't know already," he said, his clear blue eyes tinted gold in the dim light of the lampposts. His blonde hair was neat and orderly as always, even after ages of searching after him. At least Eren assumed that he had been searching for ages. He had a strict policy of not having a "usual haunt" where people could always find him. He put a lot of effort into staying hidden, and he always hated being found.

"Really," Eren scoffed. He pushed his elbows back and stepped away from the wall, standing up to his full, still-insubstantial height. "Then tell me what I'm doing out here. Go on. I want to hear it from you, if you're apparently so omniscient."

"Well, I would say you were out here to drink, but that really wouldn't set you apart from anyone else in this hellhole," he began. Eren cringed at the condescending tone of his voice. "Knowing you, and what you've been busying yourself with in your free time lately, I would say... you're drinking to forget."

"So what?" Eren tossed back carelessly. "Lots of people drink to forget. How would that make me any different from every other sorry person in any bar on this godforsaken street?"

"Are you upset over what's happened?" he asked suddenly. He stood only a few feet from Eren now. The strong, defined lines of his face were cast in shadow, making him look almost like a panel from a superhero comic.

"Why would I be upset?" he said impassively. "I haven't done anything to get myself all wound up. If anything, she's the one who should be upset."

The man sighed. "What did you do this time?"

"Nothing that I regret. If anything, she should be feeling the same way. Instead she's been calling me non-stop for the past two days. I told her at least a thousand times that I wasn't looking to get involved. Really, she doesn't have any reason to be acting the way she is."

"I don't think that she sees it the way you do," he remarked. "Not everyone meets new people expecting them to come back and reconnect only at their convenience."

Eren glared pointedly at the man. "I do not reconnect with people_ at my convenience."_

"What do you make of that contact list of yours, then?" He crossed his arms over his chest and edged closer. "Name five people on there that you call for some reason other than to have someone to spend the night with."

Eren's fingers clenched around the tiny metal box in his pocket. He glared venomously at the man before him. "You can't tell me how to live my life."

"Perhaps not. But I can still tell you that I disapprove."

"Why should it matter to me what you think?" Eren spat, setting his hands confidently in his pockets and taking a challenging step forward.

"Because I'm trying to help you, Levi," the man said. His words were soft, coaxing and convincing, but Eren could sense the anger and desperation hidden behind them. "You can't continue living like this."

"Why not? Because this isn't something _you_ would do? Face it, I'm not you. This isn't your life. We're two different people, and it shouldn't matter to you how I decide to spend my time."

"You're making a mistake."

"Not in my opinion." Eren brushed past him and started for the end of the alley. "This conversation is over. Goodbye."

"Levi, wait-"

Suddenly, a strong, heavy hand clamped over Eren's shoulder and jerked him backwards. A short, startled gasp slipped past his teeth and he whirled around, his face set in anger. The man was standing there, just inches away, one arm outstretched and hanging onto his arm. He gripped his hands over both of Eren's shoulders, held him still and locked his eyes with an insistent, earnest gaze.

"Levi, listen to me," he commanded. "You're hurting people. You need to stop."

"D-Don't touch me!" Eren snapped. He swatted furiously at the man's wrists until his hands finally let go and dropped at his sides. Eren took a few steps back. He could feel rage welling up in the pit of his chest. His breath was coming in short, angry bursts.

"Please, Levi. I'm asking you this as your friend," the man implored. "Stop using people like this. It's going to come back and haunt you someday."

"Then I'll worry about it someday," Eren shot back. "Now leave. I don't need you here on top of everything else."

"Levi."

A shiver ran down Eren's spine. There was something different about that man's voice. It was colder. Angrier. He didn't dare think of what it implied. He just wanted him gone. He wanted to be alone, to drink his memories into oblivion and wake up next to someone else who wouldn't start chasing him down like the last one had...

He swallowed his fear and stood his ground. "I said leave."

The man said nothing. He only stared at him, letting Eren watch as the clear blue pools of his eyes slowly turned into ice.

"Why are you still here?"

"You're a whore, Levi."

The words struck Eren like a slap to the face. "W-what did you just-"

"You're a filthy, sex-crazed, heartbreaking whore," the man said, his voice low and steeped in poison. "You string people along. You use them up and then throw them away as if they're nothing. The only people you stay in contact with are the ones you know you can use again." He paused for a second, and the March air seemed to drop a few degrees colder. "You don't really care about anyone, do you?"

"You don't have any right to say that," Eren said, his voice just as frigid as the other man's.

"I have every right," the man said with frightening finality. "You're like a cat. You don't care or feel anything for anyone. You just hang around whoever is willing to feed you, and once they can't do that anymore, you leave."

"That's not true," Eren snipped. "And you have no reason to be telling me otherwise. This is my life, I will live it the way I want to, and there is nothing... _nothing_ you are going to be able to do to stop me." Eren paused for a second, just long enough to take a breath and let a small victorious smirk pull a the corners of his lips. "Besides, that isn't what cats are like at all."

The man's face darkened. "Is that so?" he asked softly.

Eren ignored the small jolt of fear that ran through his nerves. There was no reason for it to be there. He had won his fight. The man had made his statement, he'd offered a rebuttal, and he had won the argument. There was no reason to drag this out any further. Now they could both go their separate ways and leave this in the past.

So why was the man still standing there? And why was there a sly smile starting to spread across his handsome face?

"I guess you'll be the one to find out for the both of us then, won't you?" he said. He raised an arm and stretched out his hand toward Eren, palm down, fingers twisting themselves up into a strange pattern hovering above the ground.

Eren's heart hammered in his chest. He took an unsteady step back. "What are you doing?" he demanded. But there was no answer that the man would give him.

"Stop," he said. But it was too late. The man's hand flipped over, his fingers snapped together, and all of a sudden Eren was rooted to the spot. His last words came out in a panicked scream.

_"ERWIN, PLEASE, NO!"_

The entire world around him disappeared into a blaze of light, and it was over.

* * *

><p>Eren woke up in a cold sweat.<p>

He gasped and his eyes flew open. His body thrashed once, only a little, before he felt the comforting weight of his blankets holding him in place. He blinked a few times, and the dim images of his room slowly came into focus. He sat up and leaned over to see the face of the clock on his nightstand. It was just past two in the morning. Eren sat back against his pillows and let out a long, relieved breath that he hadn't realized he had been holding. He drew his knees up against his chest and leaned forward onto his legs. That had to be one of the strangest dreams he'd ever had.

_Where did that even come from?_

"Mrrr?"

Eren looked over his shoulder and back at the pillows behind him. There was a small black lump resting on one of them that he didn't remember being there when he fell asleep. One glowing silver-blue eye opened a slit, glanced up at him and fell closed again. It moved one of its tiny paws out from under its chin, swept it drowsily over its nose, then buried its face back into its fur.

_Oh. It's just Levi_, Eren thought. _When did he start sleeping on my pillows?_After staring into space for another minute and trying futilely to calm his nerves, Eren let himself lie back down. He was more careful lowering himself down onto the pillow than usual. He never appreciated it when Levi woke him up at ungodly hours of the night. He guessed that the volatile little cat's reaction wouldn't be much different. Probably worse.

It took much longer than he would have liked to fall asleep. He spent what felt like centuries lying on his back and staring blankly at the ceiling. The memory of his dream ran through his head over and over again. The strange man and all the things he said that he understood without even a hint of context, that flash of light, the frantic screaming that was his own voice, but somehow didn't sound like him at all...

What does it all mean?

Eren rolled over onto his side and stared at the balled-up shadow that was Levi sleeping on the pillow next to him. At least he thought he was sleeping. He knew that Levi could sometimes seem to be miles away and actually be conscious of every little thing going on around him. He wondered if that was what he was doing now, pretending to be dozing away next to him while he was studying his every little movement, taking him in as if he were an experiment to be observed. The soft, steady rhythm of Levi's breathing whispered next to his ear, filling the silence with soothing white noise. It started to calm Eren down. Eventually his eyelids turned heavy, and he started to drift. In the split second before his eyes closed, he thought he saw the star-like flash of Levi's eyes flickering open to watch him again.

He heard the words in his head a moment later.

There. You can't hurt anyone like this now, can you? Don't bother trying to turn yourself back. I can tell you are. You can't. You of all people should know it's impossible to reverse a hex. Don't look so sad. If any of what you said is right, it probably won't be all that bad being a cat. Of course, if you ever do want to return to your human form, that's another matter entirely. They do say that true love can break any spell, but...

I really don't think you'll be able to do it.

Then Eren fell asleep and everything was quiet again.

* * *

><p>Eren slammed the door as hard as he could as soon as he stepped into his apartment.<p>

It was Monday again. It was also almost nine at night.

Eren dropped his backpack on the floor with an unceremonious thump. It had been far too long of a day for him to bother putting it down carefully. First he'd had to get up an hour earlier than usual to drag himself out to his calculus class to get extra help from his professor, whose hours were so sporadic Eren wondered why he even bothered telling students to come in for help at all. Then he'd had his usual classes, his usual lack of free time even to stop by the dining hall and grab himself something to eat. It had started to rain at some point in the middle of the day when he'd been stuck in a classroom, and the temperature had dropped considerably from where it had been when he had left the apartment in the morning. He'd had to run straight to the cafe after Western Civ ended at three. He'd thought that he would be able to cram his few hours of work in, collect his desperately needed payment for that day and head home to dive into the accumulated pile of work that had been slowly collecting over the past few days. But that wasn't how things turned out.  
>The second he stepped behind the counter, he noticed the smug, stupid look on Jean's face. He'd tried to guess at what was going on with him, but it seemed that the horse-faced jerk couldn't wait to tell him. At some point, somehow, Mikasa had actually accepted one of his innumerable invitations to go on a date with him. He had signed on for a little overtime that night, since he'd just gotten a huge project out of the way, but, as he delicately put it, "Something more important just came up out of nowhere." Then he had asked Eren to cover his overtime for him. No, he hadn't asked. He'd told him to do it. He had said that their boss needed someone to stay in for a few extra hours that night, since there were no other takers for that shift. Jean had insisted that Eren do his work for him so he could go out with his sister. His sister.<p>

And in return, they would be splitting the overtime pay. Jean, who didn't need the money, was splitting the payment for work that he didn't had explained the situation to their boss. He made sure that he would be getting every cent of Jean's overtime. At least that much had gone right for him. But that was all. Now it was cold, he was home late and soaking wet, his sister still wasn't back from frolicking around town with the single person he hated more than anyone else in his life, and he had a prodigious mountain of work that he would have to sacrifice his precious seven hours of sleep to finish.

Eren barely had enough energy to stagger to the couch before his legs gave out underneath him. He collapsed onto the cushions, as he always did when he came home on the most difficult day of the week. Only this time, he didn't think he would be able to get up and keep going after a few minutes. He wanted to pass out right then and there. Preferably for the next ten years.

He was done. There wasn't any other way to put it. He couldn't keep going. He was too tired, to angry. All of his motivation was gone. He was absolutely finished.

Eren breathed in, grabbed a random pillow from the couch, pressed it over his face and screamed. Once all the air had run out of his lungs, he pulled the suffocating plush away and tried to get his breathing under control again. He was having a hard time doing even that much. It seemed like the stress that was screwing with his head was screwing with every other part of him as well. So Eren resorted to clutching the pillow to his chest, curling up into a ball and rolling over to face the back of the couch and seethe.

"Meow."

Eren didn't bother getting up, or even looking away from the upholstery in front of his face. He knew it was Levi. He'd probably come in through the window again, after Eren had let him out that morning. Now he was back, and, as usual, probably looking for food.

Well, too bad, Levi. You're going to have to wait patter of tiny black paws scampered across the apartment, out of Eren's room and into the living room. They came to a stop right next to the couch. "Meow?"

Eren didn't move. He wasn't going to be getting up for a long time, if he could help it. Levi could complain all he wanted. It wouldn't get him anywhere. Unless he could give Eren an entirely new philosophy on life, he wasn't going to be getting anything.

"Mrrr," Levi chirped. The cushion underneath Eren tugged a little towards the edge, he guessed from Levi grabbing the edge and pulling himself up to see over it. All he'd be getting a view of was Eren's back. "Meow?" he said inquisitively. Eren still refused to respond.

A second later, there was a soft scuffle of paws lifting away from the floor. Something small and heavy landed directly behind Eren and pressed up against the small of his back. One small paw jabbed his side, extended its claws and tugged at the fabric of his shirt. Eren exhaled heavily, and that seemed to be enough of an affirmation that he was still alive and capable of providing Levi with food. The cat rubbed his head against Eren's back, running his head up against his human's shoulder blade. "Mrrr..." he cajoled, trying and failing to will Eren to get up.

Eren still wouldn't move. He couldn't. He just didn't have it in him anymore. But still Levi tried to get him to cooperate, swatting his side and commanding "Meow!" over and over again. After a minute, it stopped. The feeling of Levi's demanding swats disappeared, and the apartment was quiet. Then he felt Levi's paws settle onto his side. "Mrrrow?" the cat said softly.

Eren strained his eyes to look up. Levi was leaning over him, his silver-blue eyes staring at him with a kind of intensity that Eren had never seen from him before. Levi blinked once and Eren felt the his paws flex and knead the fabric of his shirt. Probably some last-ditch effort to get him up. Eren sighed and let his eyes relax again, resorted to staring aimlessly at the couch.

Eren had fully expected Levi to leave after that. The cat knew he wasn't going to be getting anything from him. There was no point in standing around and waiting for him to respond. Levi had never been very patient with him as it was.

Much to Eren's surprise, he felt Levi climb over his side and land haphazardly in the sliver of space between him and the back of the couch.

Eren strained his eyes to look down the length of the couch while Levi squirmed in the tight spot he'd worked himself into. He wriggled his way further up, clawing his way over the pillow and inching towards Eren's face. He had a determined look on his face, but Eren didn't waste more than a second observing it. In a minute, Levi had crawled up next to him, sandwiched tightly between the student, the pillow and the couch. He leaned in close to Eren's face and sniffed delicately at his cheek, as if he were trying to smell what kind of problem was making the human so lethargic. Eren twitched at the feeling of the feline's whiskers brushing his skin, but nothing more.

Levi nudged his nose against the side of Eren's head. "Meow?" he inquired.

Eren rolled himself onto an angle and looked up at Levi, who gazed expectantly back. He couldn't help feeling like the cat thought he was some kind of therapist. The thought was kind of funny, but he didn't feel up to laughing. A heavy breath rushed out of his lungs, and he dragged the hand that wasn't being crushed under the pillow up towards Levi's head to scratch him behind the ears. The feline closed his eyes and pressed his head back against the student's fingers, but the moment didn't last. Eren's hand dropped after a second. Levi nudged it with his nose, then insistently nuzzled his fingers and looked pointedly at the human, waiting for him to give some sort of response. When one never came, Levi delicately lowered himself down onto the narrow wedge of space behind the pillow and snuggled up to Eren's side, placing his head onto his arm.

Eren blinked at the feeling of a warm, furry weight settling on top of him. He glanced down at himself to see Levi there, huddled against his pressured arm. It was surprising. Even more than when he had woken him up to get some affection in the middle of the night, or when he had surfaced from sleep to find him on the pillow next to him. This was Levi getting close to him for no reason whatsoever. Levi acting sweet when he knew he had nothing to gain from it. Levi putting aside his own needs, even for a short while, because he knew something was wrong and wanted to do whatever he could to fix it.

This was Levi... _caring._

Something warm and fuzzy surged up in Eren's core and flooded his chest, filling his heart until it felt like it would burst. Levi cared about him. And for some odd reason, knowing that made him so much happier than it sensibly should have.

Eren unpinned his arms to push the couch pillow away and wrap both of them around Levi, pulling the cat close and hugging him tightly against his chest. Levi rattled a bit in response, but didn't try to push him away. The student curled his body around the tiny, fluffy ball of warmth and buried his nose into his soft black fur. The cat wriggled a bit in his arms, adjusting his head to fit into the curve of his neck and shoulder. Eren ran his fingers into Levi's fur, and everything that had been pressing down on him only minutes earlier seemed to fade away into the background. He closed his eyes and took a deep, soothing breath. The clean and oddly soothing smell of Levi's fur flooded his senses, and he felt the faint vibrations of a purr starting up in the cat's chest. He wasn't sure if it was because he was happy, or because he was trying to cheer his human up. If he was trying to make Eren feel better, then it was definitely working.

After some amount of time that Eren wasn't at all sure of, he heard his phone buzz on the endtable by the couch. It was Mikasa, letting him know that she was on her way home, so sorry for staying out so late, can you please call me at around nine to wake me up for class tomorrow morning? Eren texted her back an acquiescent "okay," then dropped his phone back on the endtable. Levi shifted lazily against his chest, and one blue-mercury eye cracked open to see what had disturbed him.

"Sorry about that," Eren said gently. "Mikasa's coming home soon. She'll probably flip her shit if she sees that I haven't gotten any work done." He nodded toward his backpack, which hadn't been moved from the spot on the living room floor where he had dropped it when he came in. Levi exhaled deeply in his way that reminded Eren of a human sigh and reluctantly detached himself from the student's chest. Eren peeled himself up from the couch cushions, taking extra care not to jostle the cat too much, then spent a second organizing the pillows so that he wouldn't have to change his position too drastically. Once he seemed comfortable again, Eren stepped back from the couch and went about dragging his backpack into his room.

He had a lot of work ahead of him. He had wasted more minutes than he could possibly count cuddling with Levi on the couch, and he probably wouldn't be getting much sleep that night. But somehow, it didn't bother him anywhere near as much as it had when he had first come home.

In that time he'd wasted, Levi had finally come through for him, and that alone made it worth every second.


	9. Chapter 9

**MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYBODY I'm a day late.**

**What's your present this year? A new chapter, that's what.**

**I tried to post Christmas eve, but then it was too late at night and I was tired. Then I tried to do it again last night and again I really just wasn't up to it. So now I've got more than enough time, it is far from super-late, and I am gonna finish thing before the end of winter break if it kills me.**

**THE TITLE IS THE OCTOBER STORY, IT'S ALMOST THE END OF DECEMBER AND WE'RE STILL NOT DONE.**

**That's really all I've got to say for this update. Insert self-promotional bullshit here.**

**(asking-appelia, fic: the october story, tumblr. remember those things.)**

**Happy whatever's left of the holidays. **

**Story time!**

* * *

><p>Wednesday mornings started late.<p>

Eren usually didn't get up until he absolutely had to. He only had two classes, one at eleven and the other at twelve forty-five. Then it would be off to work at two, back home at six, and coming back to Levi.

Speaking of Levi, he had become oddly attached to him in the past few days.

After the episode on Monday afternoon, he'd gone to his room to start his homework, and then Mikasa had come home. And, for the first time Eren had ever seen her do it, she had stopped by the couch to scratch Levi's ears. Afterwards the cat had come into his room and watched him do homework, reading his analysis questions and the essay that he had due in two days over the human's shoulder. Eren passed out from exhaustion at about three in the morning and had almost been late to class the following day. He slept through his alarm and probably wouldn't have even woken up if it weren't for Levi licking his face until he opened his eyes.

Tuesday was boring, and just as Eren had predicted, he got even more work piled onto the mountain that he already had. He spent all the time he had after getting home on finishing it, and Levi had curled up and slept next to him until almost eleven, when Eren finally slammed his laptop shut and decided that he couldn't do any more if his life depended on it. Then he had fallen asleep and, once again, woken up to the feeling of moist sandpaper lapping at his face.

Eren cracked his eyes open. His gaze focused in on two clear orbs of grey and blue set into a velvety black background. A smile crept onto his face and he wormed one hand out from under the covers to rub the sleep out of his eyes. "'Morning," he mumbled.

"Meow," Levi replied.

Eren rubbed the cat's shoulders with his free hand and peeled himself off the bed to glance at the clock. It was almost nine.

"Good timing," Eren said, glancing appreciatively down at the cat on the pillow next to his. He pushed the blankets away from his legs and dropped his feet down onto the floor, wincing as his feet hit the frigid wood. It was getting colder and colder with every day that passed.

It's going to be winter before November at this rate, Eren thought as he headed to the kitchen to start breakfast for the two of had already left, probably for the diner, since her Wednesday classes were in the afternoon. Or out with Jean again, since he had made a deliberate show of sending her another invitation while Eren was working with him the afternoon before. Eren didn't think as much of it as he did at first. Mikasa was a big girl and he knew she was more than capable of taking care of herself. Besides, he had better things to worry about than his stupid rivalry with Jean.

For instance, the cat who came scampering into the kitchen at his heels and started circling around his legs while he tried to cook.

"Levi," Eren said warningly, trying to evade him while he went about cracking eggs into a pan and throwing slices of bread into the toaster oven. "Levi, stop. You're going to trip me again."

Levi didn't stop. And strangely enough, Eren didn't stumble over him either. It was almost as if they had synchronized over the past month. The cat hopped up onto the counter while Eren stirred the eggs into a yellow tie-dye blob, then the toaster went off and he was throwing everything together onto a plate and a tea saucer. He would have to eat fast if he wanted to get to class on time, but he still wanted to sit with Levi for a while before he left.

Eren set the plates on the counter and Levi crossed over to where he leaned against the cabinets. He sniffed at his eggs and started to eat, looking up after a few bites to lick his nose and blink appreciatively at Eren.

"Halloween's coming up in a few days, you know," Eren pointed out to him.

It was October 28th. Halloween would be on Saturday night, and Eren hadn't made any plans. He had gotten around to putting up the cobwebs around the apartment, just like he had promised Armin that he would, and then given the rest of the bag back to him. Reginald (the name that they had decided to give the skeleton that they'd taken home) was sitting out on the front porch on one of Armin's dining room chairs. They decided that he'd get some sunglasses, a hat and maybe a tie once Halloween finally came around. It was kind of funny, that Reginald had plans and not him or Armin. There was always the option of crashing Jean's annual house party of ridiculous proportions that he threw every year. Too many people always showed up for him to bother kicking out the ones who weren't on the guest list.

"What do you want to do?" Eren found himself asking the cat.

Levi looked up from his eggs again. His perceptive eyes fixed on Eren's face. He caught a flash of something under the surface, but he wasn't sure what it was. Right then, he couldn't read Levi as easily as he normally could. Maybe it was just because it was early. That was what Eren told himself, but still he felt there was something he was missing. Something Levi was hiding from him.

But that didn't make any sense. What would a cat possibly want to hide?

* * *

><p>Eren managed to cram in a visit to Armin's apartment on Wednesday afternoon.<p>

For once in their lives, his professors had taken a day without assigning him something new to work on. He'd had another test in calculus, which, despite the stress, saved him a pointless homework assignment that would have taken him centuries to finish. So, after work ended at six, he had made a break for it back to the old split-level. He stopped by his apartment to unlock the door and check if Levi had come back from his outing that morning. He had, as it turned out. The cat came scampering across the apartment and stood in the doorway, chirping and winding affectionately around Eren's legs.

"Hi, Levi," Eren said. He shrugged off his backpack and crouched down to pick Levi up and pressed a kiss to the side of his furry little head. The cat rubbed his nose against Eren's face and started to purr, vibrations traveling up Eren's arms.

_Welcome back. I missed you_, he seemed to be saying.

"I missed you too, Levi," Eren replied with a left his door unlocked and headed downstairs to knock on Armin's door with Levi cradled on one arm. His friend answered after a few seconds of shuffling on the other side and the noise of something that sounded like a pile of books hitting the floor.

"Hey, Eren!" Armin said brightly. Right at that second, Erwin weaved past his legs and slipped out the door. The pale cat walked confidently up to Eren and rubbed his head against his shin in greeting, earning himself a defensive growl from Levi. Eren jostled his arm a bit, trying to settle the little cat down.

"So. Halloween. Tell me what's happening," Eren said, not wishing to waste any time.

"Nothing. That's why I asked you to come over." Armin glanced past Eren and into the entryway. "Guessing Mikasa's busy again?"

"Yeah. Not really sure what with, though."

Armin stepped back to let his friend into the apartment. "So, are her and Jean a thing now, or..."

"No idea," Eren replied. "He probably thinks they are, as far as I know she doesn't, and I'm sincerely hoping that they break up before all of this crap goes too far."

Armin hummed in agreement. "Hm. Well, it's her life. She doesn't have to break up with him just because you want her to. Especially if she eventually starts liking him back."

_This is my life, I will live it the way I want to._

Eren shuddered inwardly for a second. The words from his strange dream echoed in his head. He tried to push them away. It was almost a week ago. Why can't I just forget about it already?

"Well, I hope she never does," Eren said definitively. "Even if that's all I can really do about it.""Hoping didn't stop Taylor Swift from getting into relationships," Armin pointed out.

"Don't you dare go trying to bring Taylor Swift into this."

Armin snorted and Eren dropped down onto the couch, repositioning Levi to sit in his lap. The cat seemed to have melted into a limp noodle at some point. He draped himself carelessly over Eren's legs, and the human couldn't do much more than sigh and try not to move too much.

"You think that she's got plans already?" Armin asked, lowering himself down onto the couch next to Eren.

"Taylor Swift?"

"No. Mikasa, you idiot."

"I've got no idea," Eren muttered. "Jean's probably slated her name onto the VIP list for his annual party at this point. Even if he's got a girlfriend- which I sincerely hope he doesn't- he can't bail out on the Halloween house party. He does that shit every year. He's famous for it."

Armin raised his eyebrows. "So you're actually considering going? Do you even remember what happened last time?"

"Of course I do," Eren shot back dismally. "But it's not like we've got anything better to do."

"So... I'm guessing that's a no to staying up all night with a bag of discounted candy and Tim Burton movies?"

"Oh. Sorry. Did you have your heart set on that?" Eren asked apologetically.

"Not really. It was just an idea," Armin admitted. "Besides, if it doesn't work out, we could probably just do it some other time."

"We definitely should. That definitely sounds like a plan if I've ever heard one."

"Okay. I guess we can pick a night once we've both got the time to spare."

"Yeah. Even coming over here tonight was on a bit of a fluke," Eren said dispiritedly. He took a deep breath and let it out in a long, exhausted sigh. "College sucks."

"It's probably going to get better once all the gen ed classes are out of the way," Armin responded. "Then you'll be able to take fewer classes and focus on the stuff you really enjoy."

"But you enjoy everything, Armin."

The blonde rolled his eyes. "Okay, fine. Maybe I like to have my bases covered. But once I've gotten through this year, I'll be focusing on my vet science concentration and vet science only. I promised my grandpa that I would stop driving myself nuts, and I'm going to live up to it.""Yeah. Tell me that when you're studying the cubist movement," Eren scoffed.

"What? Art's interesting. Is there something wrong with that?"

Eren laughed a little, running his fingers through Levi's fur. "No, no, just... is it even possible for you to be lazy? Just a little bit?"

Armin shrugged. "I don't know. I'm just used to pushing myself."

"You're going to push yourself off a fucking cliff at this rate."

"Okay, okay, point taken," Armin said, laughter lilting in his voice. "If I take... let's say, one course less next year than I did for this one..."

"Meow."

Armin was cut short by a large, cream-colored lump of fur launching itself up onto the couch and landing on the cushions between the two of them.

Erwin kneaded the cushions between his claws for a moment, then glanced over at Eren. He ventured a few steps closer to him and meowed cordially.

"Hi, Erwin," Eren said, giving the cat a friendly smile. He raised a hand to pet the advancing cat and felt Levi suddenly twitch in his lap. The raven cat raised his head to see what all the commotion was about. The second he registered Erwin standing at an unsafe distance, his ears flicked out sideways. He growled angrily at the larger cat, who didn't seem to mind in the least. He leaned his head into the tips of Eren's fingers as the human rubbed him behind the ears. Then Levi hissed and a paw lashed out to swat Erwin across the face. He retreated to Armin's side of the couch after that.

The blonde couldn't help laughing a little. "Well, they... they sort of get along now, I guess?"

"Levi's not trying to kill him anymore, so that's an improvement," Eren said, pulling a militant Levi back into his lap and squishing him close to calm him down.

"Hey, Eren..."

"Yeah?"

"Do you ever get the feeling that maybe... I don't know, that they might have a... a history of some kind?"

Armin's words struck him like lightning. _So you've been hearing voices from your cat too._

"Yeah, I do. All the time."

For once, the words out loud sounded nowhere near as strange as they did inside his head.

* * *

><p>Armin looked unusually dismal in lit analysis on Friday.<p>

Eren glanced up from his notes and over to his friend every few seconds. Every time he did, it was always the same thing. Armin was sitting slumped over his notes, his eyes flicking up every now and again to see if the professor had written anything of note on the whiteboard at the front of the room. His hand moved slowly over his notebook, mechanically scribbling notes down onto the lined paper. The look on his face hadn't changed since he had walked into the room. He seemed kind of deflated, almost like he was wilting.

Eren scooted his chair a few inches closer and leaned over to him "Armin," he whispered. His friend stayed comatose, as if he hadn't heard him. "Armin," Eren repeated, louder this time. "Hey, Armin. You okay?"

Armin jumped in his chair, his eyes blinking themselves wide behind his glasses. He'd forgotten to put his contacts in again. "H-huh? Wha-"Armin stammered nervously before he turned and saw his friend nearly hanging off the edge of his seat. "What is it?"

"Are you okay?" Eren asked again. "You've been looking half-conscious for the entire class."

Armin stared blankly at him for a second, as if he'd been speaking some other language, before he suddenly seemed to regain his senses. "Um... y-yeah. I'm fine."

If Eren wasn't mistaken, it looked almost as if Armin hadn't slept. It shouldn't have been surprising, since he worked day and night to keep up with his classes. But this time the sleep deprivation seemed different. It was wrong. This wasn't just another all-night studying binge.

He had brought Levi to Armin's apartment again the afternoon before. Everything had been fine. It had seemed like everything with him and Erwin had blown over. He knew that his friend had been a little distressed over their fighting, but that was over now. Aside from that, Armin hadn't told him about anything else that had happened. As far as Eren knew, his grandpa was still alive, they still had the bookstore, and he still had his job at the vet's office. It must have been something else. Something recent. Though Eren had to wonder why Armin hadn't told him yet.

"You sure about that?" he ventured. "You look like you're about to pass out."

"Y-yeah, I'm totally fine, I just... I didn't get much sleep last night."

So he had guessed correctly. "Why not?"

"Eren, is there something you'd like to share with the class about Flaubert's work?"

Eren started in his chair and his head whipped around towards the front of the room. The professor was looking irritatedly at him through the thick lenses of his glasses.

"N-no, professor," Eren stammered. The man stared him down for a moment, then turned away and jumped straight back into his lesson.

Eren leaned over to Armin's chair once he was sure the professor was busy again. "I'll talk to you after class," he whispered. "Okay?"

Armin nodded weakly. "Sure."

Half an hour later, the professor dismissed them all, and Eren raced out of the room. He stopped short just outside of the entrance. Armin didn't seem to be in a cognizant state that day. He was sure that he would forget the conversation they had, automatically leave the classroom and walk to his next class. And that was exactly what would have happened if Eren hadn't stepped out and pulled him out of the outpouring of students.

Armin squeaked in surprise when his feet skidded on the floor and he was dragged sideways. As soon as he turned around, though, his short panic subsided.

"Eren."

"Yeah. Me," Eren said, unenthused.

"What is it? I've got another class starting in five minutes, and it's a bit of a walk across the campus-"

"Screw the class. We need to talk."

Armin froze up, as if some circuit in his brain had suddenly disconnected. "Screw the class?" he repeated in disbelief.

"Something's wrong, and I want you to tell me what it is. Right now."

"Now?"

"Yes. Didn't you hear what I just said?"

"But... Eren, I-"

"I know. I've got one too, and I'm pretty sure that missing the first few minutes won't get anybody killed. Now come on. Let's head out to the green. There shouldn't be too many people there."

Armin opened his mouth, but in the very same instant he seemed to shut down. It was like he had simply lost the will to protest any more. He staggered along behind Eren as his friend dragged him out of the building and onto the wide expanse of grass at the center of the campus. He headed over to an empty bench and pushed his friend backwards into it. Once he was sitting, Eren took up the empty space next to him.

"Talk," he commanded.

Armin looked over and stared at him for a silent second, his mouth ever so slightly open and his wide eyes darting around to different spots on Eren's face. The moment dragged on, and for a while it seemed that Armin was unwilling to say anything, though Eren didn't understand why. Then the blonde dropped his gaze and took a deep breath.

"Erwin's gone."

Eren felt as if he had hit a wall. He didn't know what he had been expecting to hear, but it certainly wasn't that.

"What?"

"Erwin is gone," Armin repeated, this time more insistently than the last. "He's disappeared. It's been hours and I can't find him anywhere."

Eren tried to find something to say, but the words just wouldn't come. He was still trying to come to terms with the single fact that Armin had dropped onto him from out of the blue. "E-Erwin? You mean your cat Erwin?"

"Yes, what other Erwin is there?"

"I-I'm sorry. I just..." Eren stuttered. "What happened?"

"It... it happened last night," Armin began shakily. "It was just a little bit after you and Levi left. I was home, and he was with me, and we were both just sitting in the living room when the vet's office called. The other assistant said that there was someone came in with an entire litter of puppies that had been in a house fire and they were understaffed for the night. So, of course, I said I would go, and I left as soon as I hung up. I-I don't know what happened, if maybe I left a window open or the door or something, but... but..."

Armin trailed off for a second. He seemed to shrink into himself on the bench, slumping over and staring at the ground before continuing. "When I got back to the apartment, he wasn't there. I called for him, and he didn't show up. I figured maybe he had fallen asleep or something, but when I checked my room, he wasn't there either. Th-then I got worried, and I started thinking that maybe he had gotten stuck somewhere or something, and I started looking all over the apartment, just searching for him, but I couldn't find him anywhere. I looked for hours. I was up until almost four, running around my apartment in circles, and I never found him."

The green quieted down, and Eren waited for his friend to continue. When nothing more came out, he gently placed a hand on his shoulder. "Armin... I'm so sorry..."

"I left the apartment for an hour... for one stupid hour... and when I came back, he was gone," Armin snipped in frustration, his small hands tightening into fists on his knees. "Just gone. Like he had... magically disappeared or something!""It wasn't your fault," Eren said. He was trying. He really was. But he wasn't really sure that he was doing a single thing to calm his friend down.

"How do you know?" Armin shot back, looking sharply up at him. "How do either of us know anything? I-I don't even know what happened. I just... E-Erwin just..."

Eren didn't wait for his friend to say any more. He slipped his arms around the blonde's skinny frame and pulled him close in a tight, sympathetic hug. Armin went limp against his shoulder and his arms draped themselves apathetically around him in some half-hearted attempt at returning the hug. Eren thought he heard him sniff once or twice, but he didn't break down the way Eren knew he was liable to. He must have worn himself out the night before to be all that upset anymore. But Eren couldn't deny that he was still hurting. Armin was never the type to bounce back quickly, especially not when it came to losing pets.

Though when he thought about it, if their situation was anything like his and Levi's... Erwin hadn't really been a pet to him, had he?

"It's okay," Eren said, rubbing his hand in a circle over Armin's back. "He's probably doing just fine, wherever he is."

"You think so?" Armin asked weakly.

Eren nodded. "Yeah. And remember what you said when you found him? He didn't look like a stray. Maybe by now he's found his way back home."

"Maybe."

Eren sighed and draped his arm over Armin's shoulder, pressing his pint-size friend against his side. "You feeling any better yet?"

Armin looked up at him and raised his head to nod, but stopped and thought better of it. He quickly shook his head, brushing his bangs over his face. He quickly swept his hand under his eyebrows and pushed his hair out of his eyes before dropping his gaze back to the bench.

"Anything I can do to make it better?" Eren asked, hoping that maybe, just maybe there would be something that his friend could come up with.

"I-I don't think so," Armin replied lethargically. "Unless you can get my cat back."

Another sigh slipped from Eren's lungs and he stared out across the grass. The area was almost deserted. They couldn't stay out too much longer. Both their classes had already started, and there was only so much time they could skip out on before they missed something important.

"Hey. You remember what we talked about on Wednesday?" Eren asked.

"What? Jean's party?" Armin replied to Eren's question with even more questions. "I thought that wasn't until Saturday. How would that help?"

"No, not the party. The other thing," Eren elaborated. "Cheap candy and Tim Burton until we pass out. Remember?"

"Oh," Armin said. "Right. You said-"

"How about tonight? Does that sound good?"

Armin paused for a while, staring at the grass and reflecting the thought over and over in his head. Eren waited anxiously for a response. Even if staring at a screen for hours on end wouldn't get Armin his cat back, it would at least take his mind off of things for a while.

Finally, Armin looked up at him and offered a small smile. "Sure. That sounds great."

Eren's face broke out in a smile. "Awesome. How about you get the movies from the library and we'll set the whole thing up at my place? I've got work tonight, but I shouldn't be out too long. Does seven sound good to you?"

"Seven sounds fine," Armin agreed. "I'm kind of tired, though. I can't promise that I'm gonna stay awake the entire time."

Eren laughed, and the two of them split up with one last hug and a promise to meet up on the green again after the last classes of their days. The night still had a few kinks to work out, especially the minor dilemma that neither of them had bought any Halloween candy. But Eren figured that they could cross that bridge when they got to it. Sure, he had sort of made the plans up on the spot, but Armin needed this. And what kind of friend would he be not to come through for him when he needed him most?

After all, it was no less than what Levi had done for him.

* * *

><p>The first thing Eren did when he got back to the split-level was go downstairs and visit Armin.<p>

Eren had had to go straight from his last class to the cafe, then worked all through the afternoon until after the sun had gone down. He'd left everything else for that night to Armin. And, of course, his friend had lived up to his expectations perfectly. He had dropped by Walgreens and picked up three marked-down assortment bags that would be split up, half for that night and the rest for whichever trick-or-treaters decided to show up on their doorstep the night after. He'd also borrowed Corpse Bride, Edward Scissorhands, Beetlejuice and The Nightmare Before Christmas from the library to use for the weekend. But before they could dive straight into their night of sugar highs and claymation, there was one last thing that had to be set straight.

"Eren, I forgot to tell you about one thing."

"Hm?" Eren turned around from rifling through bags of candy. "What is it?"

"Earlier, when I was talking about what happened with Erwin, I left something out," Armin explained on the other end of the kitchen counter. "And, honestly, it's probably the weirdest part about any of this."

"Weirder than a cat walking out of a locked house?"

"Yes. Um... before he left, I think... I think Erwin left me a note."

Eren nearly dropped the bag in his hands. He caught himself just short of letting the entire assortment hit the floor. "What?" he blurted out as soon as he was upright again.

"I found it on the kitchen counter not long after I realized he was missing," Armin went on, seeming almost as surprised as Eren felt. "I don't know how else it could have gotten there, unless someone broke in and left it after taking him. And he signed his name at the bottom."

"What the..." Eren murmured. He stared at Armin as if he'd suddenly sprouted bunny ears.

"I know how it sounds, but it's true," the blonde insisted. "I still have the note! Just stay there, I'll get it." He dashed out of the room and returned a second later with a neatly folded piece of notepaper clutched in one hand. He held it out towards Eren, a pleading look on his face.

Eren cautiously took the paper from his friend. It actually was a note, written in clear, orderly handwriting, with a fancy scrawled signature at the bottom of the page. After staring blankly in disbelief for a few seconds, Eren started to read.

_Dear Armin,_

_I cannot thank you enough for allowing me to stay with you. I am aware that the circumstances were a little unconventional and most of what I asked you to do went against just about everything you know about caring for a cat. However, if you had seen me as I truly am, I'm not sure that you would have taken my residence in your apartment as well. Again, thank you for letting me stay with you and drop in on Levi as well. I had a suspicion that he was coming close to fixing his current situation, and I have very good reason to believe that I was correct. I had been trying for some time to find a way to get close to him, and then I just happened to find you._

_I am genuinely sorry that I have to leave you like this. I have other responsibilities, and I can't leave them unattended for too long. However, thanks to you, I now have an answer to the question that has been on my mind for longer than I can begin to tell you. I firmly believe that things can fix themselves from this point onward. I've noticed that you are a very studious individual, and I hope that your career in veterinary science works out. I am wishing you well. Send my message on to Levi, Eren and Mikasa, if you can._

_Sincerely,_

_Erwin_

Eren stared blankly at the paper until his eyes started to water from the lack of blinking. He squeezed his eyes shut for a second, as if the text would be gone when he opened them again, but it remained where it was. He glanced up at Armin. "What the hell is this?" he asked.

"I have no idea," Armin said, stumped. "It's not my handwriting, and if someone had broken in and taken him, then there was no way that they could have known all of that information." He crossed over into the living room and dropped down onto the couch. "It just doesn't make any sense. I mean... cats don't have thumbs. They can't write. So how did... Why did..."

"Don't ask me. I can't even make up an answer for you," Eren cut in where Armin trailed off. He traveled out of the kitchen and sat down next to him. "I'm pretty sure that Levi can read, though," he added with a smirk.

A slight smile tugged at Armin's lips. "Seriously?"

"Well, I can't really be sure," Eren said with a shrug. "But he does sit on my shoulder when I read and watches me turn pages. And I don't think that anyone can find flipping paper all that entertaining."

Armin's smile widened and he let slip a quiet laugh. "What is it with all these cats?"

"I have no idea."

Leaving it at that, the two of them went back to putting together their haul for the night. Once it was determined that all the necessities were there, the two of them headed upstairs.

Eren's first order of business was scouring the house for extra blankets to pile onto the couch while giving Armin free reign of the fridge. While he dragged things out of the hall closet, his friend picked a few things out of the climate-controlled shelves. Then the both of them combed over the tupperware boxes, trying to put together something at least somewhat substantial to eat before diving straight into the bag of candy that Armin had taken with him.

It was at about that point that Levi joined them.

The cat must have been out when the two of them had walked in. Eren had noticed that his screen-less bedroom window was open when he had been scouting for blankets. Now there were two fully-serviceable humans in the house, and the smell of reheating food as wafting out of the kitchen. It was no surprise that Levi had chosen to show up then. He started pestering Eren for something to eat, and the human caught his drift almost before the cat even had to say anything. He took out a tiny portion of leftovers and heated it up in a small bowl. Armin asked him a question about whether or not he was sure that it was okay for him to give Levi human food, and Eren said it was fine and brushed it off.

Afterwards, the two of them gathered on the couch with the huge bag of assorted candy and the movie selection sitting between them. They decided on Corpse Bride first, Eren put the dvd player on, and they buried themselves in the blankets that Eren had compiled as the previews rolled. Levi joined them during the opening credits and burrowed into the blankets over Eren's lap. The cat even nibbled at a few pieces of candy that he bothered Eren to pass down to him, including a piece of Kit Kat bar that Eren had to restrain himself from making a pun over. Corpse Bride ended and Eren voted for Beetlejuice to be played next. Mikasa came in halfway through the Day-O scene, Eren asked her if Keith had given her forcible overtime again, and she said no. It turned out that Jean had showed up at the diner a few minutes before her shift ended, then he had taken her out for hot cider and Eren stopped listening after that point. She squeezed herself into the corner of the couch next to Eren, reached over him to rub Levi's head and grab herself a few pieces of candy. The entire situation gave Eren a warm, fuzzy feeling. It was nice for all of them to be back together for the night.

After Beetlejuice was Edward Scissorhands, and just as he had every other time they had watched the movie, Armin almost cried at the end. The time was coming close to midnight when they finally started The Nightmare Before Christmas. Mikasa told them that the day had worn her out and she needed to get some sleep before she went unconscious on the couch. She left the living room for her room, and it was just Eren, Armin, and Levi. Then, later, just Eren and Levi, since Armin dropped off to sleep shortly after the opening song. Eren didn't realize it until he asked his friend to pass the candy bag over so he didn't have to squash Levi in order to reach it. He glanced over when he didn't get a response and saw his friend lying comatose under his pile of blankets, his glasses sitting skewed on the end of his nose and the bag balanced precariously on top of his legs. Eren found it a little funny, since he knew Armin was fully capable of staying up much later when he was cramming for a test. But he remembered what he had told him earlier that day. He'd been up until almost four. That left him... three hours of sleep, maybe? That was, if he hadn't stayed awake worrying about Erwin.

Whatever the situation had been, it didn't seem like anything would be keeping him awake now.

Eren leaned over to carefully lift the candy bag off of his friend and place it on the endtable. He had originally planned on heading back down to his apartment at the end of the night, but it didn't matter very much. He could stay the night if he deeded to, and at that point, it didn't seem like he'd have much of a choice. Eren nudged Levi and whispered to him that he needed to get up. The cat complied and jumped off of the couch, allowing Eren to carefully untangle himself from the blankets. Once free, he stopped the movie and shut off the tv. They had both seen the movie at least thirty times each, and they knew how it ended. Eren carefully lifted Armin's glasses away from his face and stuck a few pillows under his head so his neck wouldn't snap by morning. Then he retreated to his room.

Levi came in while Eren was stripping down and changing into pajamas. The awkwardness that the situation always brought was still there, but Eren didn't mind it so much anymore. He pushed the door shut, turned off the lights and crawled into bed. Levi jumped up onto the mattress as Eren was pulling his covers overtop of him. The chill that had been slowly descending over the town all month might have been starting to ebb for a little while right before the days of fall gave way to winter, but the apartment was still unreasonably cold at night.

Eren rolled over onto his side and sank down into the mattress, sleep already starting to drag him into its comforting darkness. Then all of a sudden there were paws pressing down on the blanket next to him, steadily making their way up to his face. He opened his eyes to see a pair of silver-blue ones staring straight back at him.

"Hi, Levi," he whispered with a smile.

The cat blinked affectionately at him and leaned forward to press his nose against the human's forehead. He slipped out of Eren's field of vision for a second, and the student let his tired eyes close. The student was sure that the cat had retreated to the corner of the bed next to his feet, the spot where he usually slept. The sudden feeling of a paw dragging at the edge of the sheets told him otherwise.

Eren opened his eyes to see the faint, shadowy image of Levi at his side, one paw outstretched and trying to peel back the covers. The human lifted a hand to the edge and pulled the blankets down. Levi looked appreciatively at him and promptly rounded the edge, burrowing underneath the covers and snuggling himself up next to Eren. Once the cat was in place, Eren pulled the blanket back up to his neck, taking care to leave a space for Levi to breathe. He placed his arms around the small, furry ball of warmth and held it close to his chest. He felt the steady, soothing vibrations of a purr starting up in Levi's chest and the cat drowsily kneading his shirt. Eren's eyes began drifting shut.

"Goodnight, Levi. Love you," he whispered, only a second before sleep dragged him under.


	10. Chapter 10

**HAPPY NEW YEAR!**

**Well, it's the last chapter. This is the end.**

**I want to thank all of you who have decided to follow this story and see it through to the end. It's been a ride, everyone. Along with all of you, I want to thank my lovely cat Pudge for being my muse and giving me ideas for the entire course of this story. Thanks for the reviews, the hits, the kudos, and everything else you guys have given me. Normally this is about the place I would stick my tumblr plugs, but I think you've had enough of those by now. If you are interested enough, go on back to one of my earlier chapters. I'm pretty sure they're in every one.**

**It's been a nice awkward little platonic romance up until now. But I'm pretty sure that it's going in another direction at this point. You've been waiting pretty patiently so far.**

**Now I think it's finally time we figure out the truth about Levi.**

* * *

><p>The first thing Eren noticed was that there was someone next to him.<p>

He was slowly resurfacing from sleep when he felt it. At first, everything had been foggy. He hadn't been sure what it was. Something warm and smooth was lying under the sheets beside him. He had his arms draped around it, pressing it close to his chest. First he thought it was a pillow. He didn't remember the previous night all that well. He might have fallen asleep while cuddling with one, or possibly grabbed it at some point during the night. It wasn't the first time that it had happened.

Then he realized that the pillow was breathing.

The numb, sleepy block in Eren's brain started to dissipate. Slowly he became aware of everything around him. He hadn't fallen asleep with a pillow last night. He couldn't have. Armin had come over, he had passed out on the couch, and Eren had left him there and gone to bed. Then Levi had gone under the covers with him.

Levi had gone under the covers. The cat had been next to him when he fell asleep. And now there was...

There was someone there. Their arms were pressed against his chest, their legs curled up around his, their head right next to his on the pillows, its weight making the plush dip and pull away from his face. And that warm, smooth thing he'd been feeling-

It was skin.

Eren's eyes were open in an instant.

The first thing he saw was sleek, raven-black hair. He thought of Levi, but it wasn't him. The cat was nowhere to be seen. Not on the pillows, not at the end of the bed, nowhere. There was just this motionless lump of a human being lying under the covers with him. Eren turned his eyes back to the stranger. Their face was hidden under the blankets, as if they had fallen asleep leaning on Eren's shoulder and hadn't been bothered when he pulled the covers all the way up to his nose. Eren untangled one arm from the sheets and raised his fingers over the edge of the blanket. He just had to see their face. He had to know who it was that had somehow ended up sleeping with him. And hopefully sleeping was all that had happened. With a shaky hand, he pushed the covers back.

Lying next to him was possibly the most beautiful young man that Eren had ever seen in his life.

He was dead asleep. Eren couldn't help feeling relieved at the fact. His unresponsive face looked peaceful, blissfully oblivious as most sleeping people's do, yet weirdly _graceful_ for someone who was completely numb to the world around them. His skin was pale, smooth and damn near flawless. Soot-black eyelashes brushed his cheeks, about an inch below a pair of dark, skinny eyebrows. He had a sharp, pixie-like nose and delicate lips in a perfect cupid's bow that were so devastatingly inviting that Eren almost wanted to touch them. A sweep of glossy black hair was scattered haphazardly over his face, cut into two layers, a longer one overlapping one that was cut close to his skin. From what Eren could see, he didn't appear to have any clothes on, and he wasn't about to go lifting the covers to see whether or not he was guessing correctly. But that wasn't what stood out to him the most about the stranger.

It was definitely the ears.

Peeking through the stranger's hair were two pointed ears. They were black, just like the hair surrounding them, covered in fine fur with soft, thin tufts running up the inner edges. Eren stared at them. He couldn't even begin to guess what they were or how they had gotten there. He wondered momentarily whether they were real or not. But if they were fake, then they were astoundingly realistic for prosthetics. Not to mention comfortable, since the man had managed to fall asleep wearing them.

Eren's breath caught in his throat. _Those look almost like..._

_But no... It can't be..._

Before Eren could finish the thought, the stranger's eyes opened.

That color. Silver-blue. He'd seen it stranger looked drowsily up at Eren, his eyes lidded and hazy. He didn't seem to take any notice of the dumbfounded look on the student's face. He simply scrunched his eyes up a bit and blinked them open a little more, took in a deep breath and let it rush back out in a languid sigh. His eyes squinted closed again and he stretched his arms out in front of him, his palms pressing into Eren's chest where they had been resting against his shirt since he woke up. Eren stared in bewildered silence, his eyes wide and fixed on the stranger. He seemed completely unaware of his situation. Then everything stopped. The ears on his head flicked, and the stranger's eyes were open again in an instant. Eren felt him flex his fingers on his chest. The man was staring straight ahead, and the sleepiness in his eyes was slowly giving way to surprise.

He was staring at his hands.

The stranger blinked, and his eyes wide open when had been drowsily narrow only a second earlier. He inhaled sharply, letting slip a quiet gasp. He quickly pulled his hands away from Eren's chest and held them up in front of his face, flipping them palms-up and palms-down, bending and unbending his fingers as if he weren't sure that any of it was real. Then his hands moved to the sides of his face, his neck, his shoulders and chest, feeling everything within their reach. All the while there was a look of mild shock on his face, as if he had been given surprising news and couldn't decide whether it was good or bad.

"What the..." he breathed. Then he gasped again, and his hands flew to his throat. He pushed himself into a sitting position, looked down at himself for a moment, and his lips started to tug upwards into a smile. "Oh my god. O-oh my god, I'm... I can..." He trailed off and his head spun around. His eyes locked with the emerald gaze of the boy next to him.

"Eren," he said breathlessly.

The student stared at him. He felt as if there were tar covering his vocal cords, like his tongue was stuck to the inside of his mouth. He couldn't find the words to speak. There were so many things to say, but there was no place he could start.

"W-who are you?" he finally stuttered. The stranger looked at him, seeming slightly surprised at his choice of words. A few awkward seconds later, Eren forced himself to speak again. "How do you know my name?"

The stranger kept staring, as if he were confused, then he blinked and all of the cloudiness in his eyes cleared away. "Eren, it's me," he said. "It's... it's Levi." The two of them kept their gazes locked for what felt like hours of silence. When Eren didn't respond, the stranger spoke up again. "You... you haven't forgotten, have you?"

The realizations hit Eren all at once, like running headfirst into a plexiglass wall. He blinked a few times, and if it were possible for his eyes to get any wider, they definitely did. "Levi?" he gasped. "B-but you're..."

"I'm human," the man finished for him. "I know. I'm human. I-I'm..."

He never finished his sentence. Instead, Levi threw himself on top of Eren, planted his hands on either side of the student's head and pressed a hard, passionate kiss on his lips.

Eren shuddered in surprise. Everything was happening too fast. He remembered the previous night as clear as any other. Levi was a cat. Or he had been, at least. Now he was a human, and he was on top of him and kissing him- and he was definitely naked. Eren was sure of that now. He froze up and lay still as a mannequin as Levi pinned him in place and kissed him over and over again.

"Thank you," he whispered against Eren's lips. "Thank you, Eren. Thank you so much..." Then, all of a sudden, it stopped. Levi drew back to take a breath, his hands cupping either side of Eren's face. He stared down into his eyes for a moment, then his gaze flicked down at himself. More accurately, his stark-naked self. "Oh. I-I am so sorry!" he blurted out, and then he was pushing himself off of Eren, scrambling back to the empty side of the bed. His ivory skin flushed a charming shade of pink. He stared at his legs under the covers for a second, then his eyes moved nervously back over to Eren.

"Hey, you wouldn't mind if I, er... borrowed something of yours, would you?" he asked.

* * *

><p>Once upon a time, Eren had found a cat in front a thrift store in the rain.<p>

Thirty days later, the cat became a human. One whose name, oddly enough, was the same one that Eren had chosen for him. His name was Levi.

Eren ventured out of his room to see Armin and Mikasa milling about in the kitchen and making muffins for breakfast out of whatever was hanging around in their cabinets. He glanced over his shoulder at Levi, who was sitting on the end of his bed. He had dressed him in a t-shirt that was far too big for him and a pair of boxer shorts that he'd had to safety-pin to stay up on his hips. Levi was smaller than Eren had thought. Then again, he hadn't ever thought that his cat would one day not be a cat anymore. Besides that, he had been unusually small when he was a cat as well. It only made sense, when Eren thought about it.

"Stay here," he said. "I'll go out and warn them first."

"Fine," Levi said, watching Eren impassively from his spot. The student thought it a little funny. He didn't seem to have changed at all from the way he was when he was a cat.

Leaving it at that, Eren crept out into the hallway and made his way into the kitchen. Mikasa and Armin turned to him as soon as he walked into the room, both of them looking bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. "Morning, Eren," Armin said, cracking an egg on the side of a mixing bowl. "Sleep well?"

"Um... yeah," Eren replied. He reached up and ran a hand nervously through his bedhead hair. "You guys might want to try and make a few more muffins out of that batch."

"Why?" Mikasa asked. "It's just the three of us. We won't need that many."

"Well, actually, about that-"

"Okay, I think it's been long enough. What am I missing out on here?"

Eren spun around at the sound of a voice that he had been so used to saying nothing but 'meow.' "I thought I told you not to come out here until I told them!"

"I got bored. How long could it possibly take to say a few words? The cat's a human, he's in my room, boom, you're done. Besides, I thought it might be easier to show than tell. What do you think?"

Eren turned back to the others. Armin was staring at the newcomer with eyes that had widened into cue balls, and Mikasa looked like she ready to pull out a knife and attack him.

"Eren, who is that?" she demanded.

Eren took a deep breath. This would take a lot of explaining.

"Armin, Mikasa... this is Levi."

"Eren," Armin said slowly, "Levi is a _cat_."

"Well... not anymore."

The start was just about as rocky as it could get.

One second, Armin and Mikasa were staring at Levi as if he- no, _because_ he had magically appeared in their apartment without even a whisper of warning. Then Eren was trying to stave off Mikasa's violent reaction and the torrent of questions that both his friend and sister were firing at him in rapid succession. Levi tried to step in and help, but that didn't do much, especially when it came to calming Mikasa down. Eren couldn't even begin to imagine what was going through her head, and he wasn't entirely sure that he wanted to. The madness didn't stop until Levi snapped his fingers.

"Stop," he commanded. Then both Armin and Mikasa had gone silent, a slightly stunned look on their faces. A second later, they relaxed, and everything was back to normal.

Eren spun around to face Levi. "H-how did you..."

"Simple," Levi said. "I'm a sorcerer."

* * *

><p>"This doesn't make any sense," Armin said for the sixth time that morning. "Levi is a cat. So if you're Levi, then-"<p>

"Correction. I _was_ a cat," Levi interjected.

"Okay," Armin said. He nodded blindly and pushed his glasses further up on his nose. "I-I'm sorry, this is all just so... ugh. I just can't get it into my head. Can you explain to me how this happened again?""I made a few questionable life choices, and an old friend of mine wanted to teach me a lesson," he explained. He picked up his cup of peppermint tea and took a leisurely sip. Eren watched him as he did, taking note of his odd habit of holding the mug by the brim. He wondered if it was something Levi had always done, or if he had simply forgotten to hold a mug properly after spending over seven months as a cat.

"What kind of life choices?" Mikasa pried.

"None that you should be concerned about," Levi snipped in reply. "And he wasn't really my friend, per se. Erwin was my boss at the bookstore, actually. We just happened to have known each other for a long time."

"You work in a bookstore?"

"Well, it's not really a bookstore. That's what we call it, to make things easier, but the purpose it serves is a lot more complicated than that. It's too many details to get into right now. Long story short, we sell magical items and services out of the back. Anyways, I'd done a few regrettable things... well,_ I _didn't really regret them, but Erwin must have been ashamed of the fact that I had done them, and one night I was out for a drink and he cornered me. We fought for a bit, then... poof. I'm ten inches tall and I've got a tail."

"You still have a tail," Eren pointed glanced behind him. The student had been right. Draped over the back of his chair was a sleek ribbon of jet-black fur. It sprouted from the base of his spine, just above the waistband of Eren's borrowed shorts, and extended all the way to his calves. It was brushing the floor, flicking against it in a slow, steady rhythm. "I suppose it's going to take a while for all of the side effects to wear off."

"So, since you're human again," Mikasa mused, "does this mean the spell is broken now?"

Levi looked down at his tea and shrugged. "I can't really be sure. For the most part, I'd like to believe it is. I am myself again. regardless of the... minor developments." He looked up toward the ceiling and twitched his ears to reinforce the point.

"But you must know how to break it," Armin insisted. "Erwin couldn't have just left you in the dark. He had to have said something, even if it was vague or some kind of riddle-"

"Well I think you're giving the man more credit than he's worth."

"So... he just left you like that? He didn't even give you a hint?"

Levi was quiet for a moment, and his tail brushed pensively over the floor. Eren watched him carefully, waiting to hear what he was going to say next. "In all honesty, no," Levi finally said. "Although, judging by what I'd done, I could make a pretty solid estimation of what it was."

Eren's eyes narrowed ever so slightly. He'd spent too much time with Levi to let something so obvious slip past him. Maybe he had learned to read him too easily. That was probably the only reason that he knew the former cat was lying.

"And what was it?" Mikasa asked, trying once again to dig up some kind of incriminating dirt from Levi's past.

"I already said I don't want to talk about it," Levi tossed back, shooting her a razor-sharp glare.

"Why not?"

Levi sighed and returned to staring disenchantedly at his tea. "It's a part of my past that I don't want to go back to. That's all."

"Okay. Then we'll stop asking about it," Eren said. He looked pointedly at his sister. "Right?" Mikasa responded by rolling her eyes and letting out a melodramatic sigh.

"Now that you're... sort of human again," Armin chimed in, "what are you going to do next?"

"Not sure," Levi said. "Not too long ago, I probably would have gone straight for revenge on Erwin, but... I don't know. I feel like things have changed since then."

The memory of the little falling-out he had witnessed in Armin's apartment surfaced in the back of Eren's mind. Then he remembered the note. Erwin had said that he needed to drop in on Levi because he had thought the cat was close to breaking his spell. Levi had to have had at least a vague idea of how he had fixed his situation. And if he had been so resentful then, how come he wasn't anymore?

Eren's head was swarming with questions, but something told him that trying to get answers right then wouldn't work out too well.

"I'll probably just go back to the bookstore," Levi went on. "It's the only place I know for sure that I can go. Erwin will probably be there, and I'll have to find out from him everything that happened while I was gone. And what he did about my apartment. I swear to god, if that bastard let me get evicted..." Levi left the sentence unfinished and started over. "I'm sure I'll figure something out. And I think he'll be happy to see me not wanting to skewer him anymore."

"Alright," Armin said with a shy smile and a nod.

"Hey, Levi..."

Levi's ears twitched, and he looked up from his tea to fix his gaze on Eren. The student felt a nervous knot twist up in his chest. He wasn't sure why it was there. He had never felt strange talking to Levi before, not even when doing it made him feel like a crazy cat boy. But things seemed so different now that he was a human.

"Yeah?"

"Um, before you go... do you want to spend the day here?" he asked.

Levi cocked his head to the side and looked vexingly at Eren. The knot tightened, and he scrambled to make the question a little clearer. "I-I mean, if it's far from here... You can go right away if you have to. But if you don't... i-if it's not..."

"I know what you meant, Eren," Levi cut in. "And no, it's not that far. I could probably stand to hang around for a bit... if certain people don't object." He glanced exclusively at Mikasa.

"I've got work today anyway," she snipped. She dumped her muffin wrappers into the trash, drained the rest of her tea mug, then stuck it into the dishwasher along with her plate. "I'm getting dressed," she said as she stepped out of the kitchen and crossed over to her bedroom door. "My shift is going to start not too long from now."

"Wait, Mikasa, aren't you-" Eren started, but his sister shut her door before he could get the rest out.

"What was that about?" Armin asked.

"Something tells me she still isn't fond of me," Levi said sarcastically.

Eren sighed. "I was going to ask her about Jean's party tonight. I mean, he's probably gotten her locked in with it anyway, but it's always worth asking. I wouldn't put it past her to try and work all night."

"Wait, that's what day it is? I forgot. Happy Halloween, Eren."

He smiled at his friend. "Thanks for that. It was delayed as hell."

Armin scoffed and grinned back at him. "Oh, shut up and appreciate me for once in your life."

"Better do what blondie says," Levi said, leaning mischievously towards Eren. "He's probably the only reason you have a chance at passing your calc exam."

Eren spun around to face him, his face blazing. "Maybe I should have been shutting you out of my room more often."

"That would have been fine with me. I had your sister's to stay in. Fact is, I preferred it."

"What? Why?"

"Eren, you aren't exactly the most organized person on the planet."

"I-I know that, but... is that really the only reason why I couldn't keep you out of there?" Eren stammered.

"Well, there was that, and the fact that pissing you off is so much fun," Levi said with a smirk.

"So you were just putting me through all of that crap to spite me."

"Not entirely... but yes, I was."

Eren groaned and dropped his head into his hand, carding his fingers into his hair. "Levi, you piece of shit."

Levi's smirk deepened and he laughed deviously. "Yeah, that's my name. Don't wear it out."

* * *

><p>Mikasa left not long after. Despite the minor outburst in the morning, she still stopped to give her regards to Levi. It seemed almost like she would miss him. Eren had tried to read her expression when she said her goodbyes, but she left too quickly for him to figure it out. After she had headed out to the diner for another day of Keith's regime, Eren and Armin took Levi downstairs to get him something to wear that would actually fit him. They rifled through Armin's closet for a while and settled on a pair of dark grey jeans, knitted socks and an old pair of converse that Armin wouldn't mind giving up for a while. They had tried to pick out a shirt for him, but he insisted that Eren's was fine, even though it hung off his slight frame like drapes on a window. He shrank it to his size with a snap of his fingers and did the same for the shorts he'd borrowed from his former caretaker. Eren wondered for a bit why Levi liked wearing his clothes so much. But the thought didn't stay for long. After picking out a heavy sweatshirt, hat and gloves for him to borrow when he left, the three of them went back up to Eren's apartment.<p>

"I have a shift at the vet's office starting at one today," Armin said shortly after Eren put another kettle on for tea.

"You do?" Eren responded. "You'll still be back in time for the party at eight, right?"

"Of course I will. I just can't stick around much longer."

Eren stood at the counter and glanced at the clock. "Well... how much longer can you stay?"

"Eren, you'll be seeing me again tonight."

"Come on, Armin. Not even for tea?"

"Where do you think we are, Buckingham Palace?" Levi cut in. "Let the kid go, Eren. He's got more important things to do than hanging around your clingy ass."

Eren spun around and glared at Levi. "I am not clingy."

"Says the guy who asked the random stranger he woke up next to to spend the day with him."

The student rolled his eyes and turned back to his friend. "Just... go whenever you need to. I'll see you tonight. Right?"

"Yeah," the blonde replied. "I've just got to go back to my place and get my books."

"I thought you said you were going to work."

"I am, but if I catch a break, I can always put the time to good use."

"Big _if _there," Levi glanced at him again before crossing the apartment to where his friend stood by the front door. "Alright. See you later, then."

"Later," Armin said. He stopped in the middle of pulling his jacket on and looked over to where Levi sat curled up in the corner of the couch. "Goodbye, Levi," he added wistfully. "I'm sorry I can't be here to see you off."

"That's alright," Levi said, sounding warmer than Eren had expected him to. "Hearing a goodbye from you right now is enough."

A slight smile shone through on Armin's face, and with that, he walked out the door. Eren listened to his footsteps scamper down the stairs, then the outside door slamming shut a while later.

"Well, isn't this a familiar situation," Levi said.

The kettle was steaming by then. Eren picked it up and poured out the hot water into their mugs from that morning. "What is?" he asked.

"Us. Being here," Levi elaborated. He drew himself up from the couch and crossed over into the kitchen. "Alone," he added quietly.

"Well, my sister's a workaholic, my friend has his own responsibilities, and I don't see many other people. So I'm sorry if my social life isn't exciting enough for you." Eren pulled the small corner cabinet open and began poking through the assortment of teas. "What kind would you like this time?"

"Here, let me take a look." Levi stepped closer and wedged himself into the corner next to Eren to look into the contents of the cabinet. Eren tensed up and took a step back. At the same time, he spied the mulled cider flavor that he had been looking for when he had brewed his first cup that day. He reached for it, and in that same second Levi had picked out the mason jar of assorted bags that Mikasa picked up in the places around town. Their hands brushed for an instant when they both reached for the cabinet at once. Then both of them took their hands back.

"S-sorry,you go ahead, I was just-" Eren started.

"No, that's fine, you can-"

"No, you go ahead, you're the guest."

Levi turned to Eren, a knowing look in his eyes. "I've been the guest here for a month," he said with a smirk, scraping quotation marks into the air around _guest_. "I'm surprised you're not sick of me by now."

Eren laughed. "Why would I be sick of you?"

At that, Levi gently shook his head and snatched the jar from the cabinet. "Thirty days and you still never cease to amaze me."

"What?" Eren asked numbly, but Levi had turned his attention to his tea. The student pushed the question to the back of his mind, grabbed his mulled-cider box and went about doing the same.

They spent a long time sitting on the couch, doing nothing but talk. Eren didn't bother keeping track of the time. He nearly always took Saturdays off work, and that one was just as average as any other. Well, other than the fact that the cat he'd picked up at the beginning of the month had magically turned into a human. An exceptionally lovely human, at that. Eren knew there wasn't any getting around it. He couldn't take his eyes off of Levi, even when he was sure that the sorcerer would sprout claws and scratch his eyes out if he kept staring at him.

Things that had been so confusing weeks before were cleared up in a matter of hours. There were so many things about Levi that Eren had never bothered asking about. That was mainly because he had been a cat until that day and wouldn't have been able to answer. But as Eren sat there with him and the conversation kept running like a leaky faucet, he got to thinking that it might have been nice of him to ask sooner, even just to let Levi know that he was interested.

Levi hadn't always been able to use magic. He had grown up rather normally, then his parents had died when he was seven and the family that had taken him in was badly disconnected. He was about twelve when he had first gotten into sorcery, and he had abused his new powers rather recklessly once he learned how to use them. He was eventually caught by the manager of a bookstore where he would often run off to when he didn't want to be stuck home with his fake family. The manager, Erwin, was the one who taught him everything he knew. He learned the rules of the game from him, learned to recognize the signs of other sorcerers, and numerous other things that he hadn't even thought about when he had first taken magic up as a hobby. After graduating high school, Erwin had employed him at the bookstore and he tapped into his inheritance in order to start going to college for a major in creative writing. He wanted to be a writer. He always had, and he honestly couldn't see himself doing anything else with his life.

The more Eren heard, the more connected he felt to the man across the couch. He had lost his mother, then his father had left not long afterwards, then fallen into foster care in relatively the same way. He had used almost the very same strategy to get himself into college and pay for his apartment. He'd always had an affinity for English, and that was what he knew he had wanted to major in. He didn't think he had enough stamina to try and write a novel himself, but he read pretty obsessively. So he'd decided he would go into publishing, maybe become a critic or editor of some kind. He wasn't sure yet. But then, neither was Levi when it came to his career.

That was where the problems had started.

He wanted to be a writer, he said. A novelist, to be specific. He had all sorts of ideas in his head. The only setback was that he had no idea how to execute them. So he had started going out in the city where he lived, looking for inspiration. He had eventually gotten what he was looking for, but along the way, he had run into a lot of other things. So he had gotten himself into a habit. When he wasn't buried under a mountain of work from classes, he would be out searching for himself. And... a few people other than himself as well.

"That was where Erwin started having issues with me. I mean, the man basically took me in as his student, and he was watching me leave work and head straight out for the red-light district almost every night. He never said anything about it, but I'm pretty sure he knew what I was doing all along. I'm surprised he didn't confront me about it sooner."

"What happened after that?" Eren asked. "Was that why he turned you?"

"No," Levi said. "Well, that was how it started, but that wasn't the entire reason. It wasn't until I started dragging other people into my issues that it started to get to him."

"How did you manage that?"

"One word, Eren. Sex."

Eren stared at him for a moment. "For some reason, that doesn't surprise me very much."

"Oh, don't flatter me," the sorcerer deadpanned. "Anyways, by the time I graduated, I had turned into... well, I was kind of a skank. I probably had more one-night stands in those few years than any person should in their entire lifetime. I would go out all the time, pick people up, then try to get rid of them as soon as I could. I didn't really have many friends other than Erwin, and I didn't have much else to do, once I was out of school." He paused for a second and gazed earnestly at Eren. "Armin isn't your only friend, is he?"

Eren couldn't bring himself to answer.

"He is, isn't he?"

The student shrugged. "I... don't have very good people skills."

"Neither do I. I just happen to be pretty enough to get people to look past that for a few hours." Levi took a sip of his elderberry tea and leaned back into the couch. "If you learn anything from this conversation, Eren, it should be this: Don't make the mistakes that I did."

"Am I going to get myself turned into a cat?" Eren said with a smirk.

"Hey. That was low," Levi tossed back. "That was how it happened to me, though," he added a second later.

"And Erwin didn't tell you how you were supposed to break the spell? No, wait, it was called a hex, right?"

"Yes, but calling it the general term makes things a little easier."

Eren shifted in place. He couldn't help feeling like Levi was equivocating, dodging his questions as if they were tennisballs shot out of a launcher.

"You said you had guessed about it, right?" he prompted.

"That's the idea, Eren. I guessed. I don't know if I was right."

The words from Eren's dream echoed in his head. _They do say that true love can break any spell, but... I really don't think you'll be able to do it._

"Well, what did you guess?"

Levi stared at him for a second before turning his sharp, nervous gaze to the wall. "Listen, I... I didn't want to say this in front of the others, but... I think Erwin expected me to fall in love."

For the second time that day, Eren felt as if the floor had dropped out from underneath him.

"What?"

"I said it was just a guess. But when you think about it, it makes sense. Being an animal but feeling like a human, knowing you're one on the inside... No one takes you seriously. No one cares about you. If a cat falls for a human, it can never work. They will never feel the same way about you if they don't know who you really are." He sighed and pulled his knees up close to his chest. "It wasn't really anything less than what I was doing to everyone else that I had ever... done things with."

Eren took a deep breath and tried to speak. His words seemed to stick in his mouth. "B-but... does that... does that mean that you-"

"I don't know, Eren. I just... I don't know," Levi murmured.

The conversation seemed to fall flat right then and there. Still, they were reluctant to move. It wasn't until they had both drained their tea and the cups had started to grow cold that someone finally looked at the clock. It was almost four.

"I should probably get going, if I want to get back to the bookstore before dark," Levi said.

"Do you think Erwin is going to be there waiting for you?" Eren asked tentatively.

"I don't see why he wouldn't be." A small smile pulled the sorcerer's lips. "Sometimes I really think I miss that altruistic bastard."

"Well, if you have to leave, I'm not going to hold you here," Eren said. He pushed himself up from the couch, ignoring the protesting ache in his legs. He turned toward Levi and extended a hand to him. The man stared at it for a second, then turned his eyes to Eren's and placed his hand in his. The student pulled him to his feet, Levi's socks slipped on the hardwood and the two of them almost crashed into each other. Eren steadied him, his heart fluttering a bit, and the both of them took a step back. Levi's implications stuck in the back of his mind like pins.

But it was just a guess, right? Levi wasn't actually-

"Eren, I hope you don't mind me asking, but... would you mind lending me the taxi fare?" the sorcerer asked. "Cats don't make a habit of carrying money with them, and it would be a bit of a stretch to try and walk back."

"Sure. How far is it?"

"Not too much. About thirty should get me there. Even if it doesn't, I'll figure something out."

"Thirty. Right," Eren said with a nod. He went to the kitchen counter and searched around for his wallet while Levi went to the door to slip on the converse that Armin had let him borrow. He found his fingers almost imperceptibly shaking when he unfolded it and took out a few days' worth of tips. He wasn't sure why. He just hoped that Levi wouldn't notice when he handed him the money.

"Thanks. I promise I'll pay you back," Levi said as he took the fare from Eren. Then his eyes moved from his face to something over his shoulder. "Hold on. I think I'm forgetting something."

"But you didn't come here with anythi-" Eren started, but Levi had already walked off before he could finish. He disappeared behind Eren's bedroom door, then came back a minute later clutching something small in his hand.

"It was on the pillow. Must have fallen off when I turned back," he said. He held up his other hand and a small click echoed in the apartment. When Levi took his fingers away, Eren saw the small woven forest-green band. He had fixed the size and clasped it around his wrist.

"Isn't that your collar?"

"Yeah," Levi said, looking fondly at the accessory. "What of it?"

"Nothing, I just... I didn't know if you would still want it."

"Why wouldn't I? You got it for me."

The warm, fuzzy blaze that Levi had summoned in him many times before flared up in Eren's chest. He tried to ignore the nervous fluttering that came with it now and instead busied himself with selecting something to wear outside. It was only sensible to let him go on his own, but Eren didn't want to just yet. It wasn't the first time that Levi had made him do something that went against every logical nerve in his brain.

They started talking again once they were outside.

"Hey, Levi, I've been wondering about something."

"What?"

"Um... this is probably going to sound kind of stupid."

"Most of what everyone says is kind of stupid. I don't see how this will be any different."

"Okay. Well, when you were staying with me, and I got you the litter box... er... what were you doing to... you know?"

Levi glanced sideways at him. "You mean where was I taking shits?"

"Uh... yeah."

"It's not that hard of a question to ask, Eren."

"I know! So... what were you doing?"

"I was using the bathroom. You know, _like a human_."

"Oh. I just sort of assumed, since you were a cat..."

"Everyone generally did."

"I would think so." Eren paused for a second, then added, "I'm sorry for trying to make you eat cat food."

"You should be. There was no way I would eat that fucking sawdust."

"I said I was sorry."

"I heard you. Now I've got a few questions of my own."

"Okay. Shoot."

"Where the hell did you learn how to take care of a cat?"

The air wasn't nearly as cold as Eren had grown accustomed to over the past month. He was glad of it. It meant that he wouldn't be freezing in whatever costume he managed to scrape together for Jean's party that night. He might be when he came home, though.

Eren hadn't even realized what he was walking out of until then. He tried to think back to the last time he had slept alone. For almost the entire past month, he'd had Levi with him at night. First in his room, then on his bed, and eventually the two of them had become used to sleeping side by side. He looked over at the sorcerer, his sleek cat ears flat against his head and hidden under Armin's beanie, his tail held low and close to his legs. He would miss him. He would miss him a lot. Why hadn't he thought about it until then?

Eventually the lights of town were glowing around them. The streets were all decorated for Halloween. Eren had never even noticed them before. The decorations had probably been up all month, and everything would probably be taken down again within the next few days. Things always seemed to pass so quickly. His life had become so packed that it felt like the world was moving on without him and he was struggling to keep up with it. Everything always slipped straight past him before he really even knew it was there. Eren had to wonder why there never seemed to be enough time to keep them around for long enough.

"Hey, Levi..."

Their steps slowed down and the sorcerer stopped to turn around and face him. "What is it?"

"I-I was just wondering something."

The smaller man looked expectantly up at him. "Which is?" he said after a while of silence.

"How are we going to-" Eren started, but he quickly thought better of his words. "Do you want to stay friends? I mean, once you leave, are you going to be coming back again, or..."

"Of course I'm going to come back," Levi said definitively. "You put up with me for a month. Do you really think I'm going to waste meeting someone like you?"

"But how are you going to find me again?"

"Well, I know where you live, if that's any consolation," he said with a smirk. "And you've got a phone. I've seen you use it." Levi extended one arm and pulled his sleeve back. "You wouldn't happen to have a pen, would you?"

"I don't think so. Hold on, I'll check." Eren dug his hand into his pocket and searched desperately around, but his hand came out empty. "Sorry. I don't."

"Hm. That's alright," Levi said. "What's your phone number?"

Though he wasn't sure how he would remember, Eren told him. Then he watched as Levi pressed his thumb and forefinger together, then rubbed his fingertip across his pale skin. To Eren's surprise, a line of clear black numbers appeared in its path. Before he could say a word, Levi took Eren by the wrist, rolled his sleeve up and rubbed his thumb across his skin. Another line appeared in what looked like deep blue ink.

"That's my cell phone," he said. "Well, it is if Erwin has been taking care of it while I was gone. I'll let you know if it's changed."

Levi let go of Eren's wrist, and the student pulled his sleeve back down. His skin prickled where Levi's fingers had swept over it. "Thanks," he murmured.

"Don't mention it," he said. Things were quiet for a while. A few people walked past, a car or two drove by, and then Levi spoke up again. "Eren, about what I said earlier..."

"About what?"

"When I said that... When we were talking about how I broke the hex," Levi continued, stopping to correct himself halfway through.

"I thought you said you weren't sure."

"That's the thing. I'm not." The sorcerer took a breath before going on. "Are you?"

"I don't know either. I mean, I like you... as a person and everything, now that I know you are one, but-"

"Eren, you've said you love me on more than one occasion. Does this mean that things are different now because I'm a human?"

Eren shivered at the bite in Levi's voice. "N-no, I... I'm not taking anything I said back. Just... with humans and cats, the implications are all different. I don't... I don't want to just throw the phrase around without meaning it."

Levi stared at him for a long time before his eyes dropped to the sidewalk. "Okay," he said quietly. "Okay, I understand."

"Levi, i-if you were hoping that-" Eren began, but he was cut short.

"It doesn't matter," Levi said. "However you feel about me, it's fine. I can live with it. Can I just ask you for one thing though?"

Eren hoped the cold air could counteract the burning blush in his face. "What is it?"

"It wouldn't kill you to be caught waiting for a cab with another man, would it?"

It didn't take long for a cab to show up. It was only a few minutes, at the most. But Eren wouldn't have minded standing there for hours, if that was what it came to. Levi stood at the edge of the curb, one arm held out over the street. At some point, he'd switched hands, and the one he had been holding up swept back a little too far. Eren had caught it, their fingers locked together, and neither of them had let go. It was something small, obviously. Almost insignificant. But it was something nonetheless.

The two of them watched as a deep yellow sedan finally pulled out of traffic and came close to the curb. Eren felt something sinking in his heart that he couldn't quite place.

Levi turned around, his face looking dismally blank. "I guess this is goodbye."

"I guess it is," Eren said. He tried to take his fingers back from Levi's, but they weren't willing to let go. "You're going to come back, aren't you?" he asked.

"Of course I am," Levi replied. Eren thought he felt his fingers squeeze just a little bit tighter around his own.

"Then... I suppose we should go ahead and say it."

"We probably should. We can't stand here all day."

Eren had to bite his lip to get the words out. "Goodbye, Levi."

Then, before he knew what was happening, Levi was standing right in front of him. The small sorcerer placed his free hand against Eren's chest, stood up on his toes and leaned forward. Their lips met, and Eren could have sworn that he felt his heart explode in his ribcage.

"Goodbye, Eren," Levi whispered against his lips. "I'll see you again soon."

He pulled back a second later. Their fingers unlaced, and Eren watched despondently as Levi stepped away from the sidewalk, pulled the passenger door open and disappeared from sight. The cab pulled away from the curb and wove back into traffic. Eren didn't move from his spot until the car was nothing more than a speck in the distance. Then, feeling disenchanted and half-sure he was in love, he turned away and started back home. He had a Halloween party to humiliate himself at, and this whole experience would take a lot of liquor to come to terms with.

Levi. He had come into his life as a cat and left as a human. At least, Eren hoped, he had left just for now. He would be coming back. He had said it too many times to take it back. Just like all those times that Eren had said... other things. Maybe Erwin would have kept up his life for him while he was absent and he would have his job back when they met again. Maybe he would have a novel in the works, and maybe he would let Eren read it. And if everything was just as much of a mess as it was the first time they met, Eren would be okay with that, too. As long as he got to see him again, he would be happy.

If Levi hadn't been writing already, he would definitely have something to write about now. Eren was fairly sure they had witnessed an entire halfway-decent love story over the course of one October. And it was definitely a story people would want hear.


End file.
